CLI Authentication

Hands-on: Try the Authenticate the CLI with Terraform Cloud tutorial on HashiCorp Learn.

Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise are platforms that perform Terraform runs to provision infrastructure, offering a collaboration-focused environment that makes it easier for teams to use Terraform together. (For expediency, the content below refers to both products as "Terraform Cloud.")

Terraform CLI integrates with Terraform Cloud in several ways — it can be a front-end for CLI-driven runs in Terraform Cloud, and can also use Terraform Cloud as a state backend and a private module registry. All of these integrations require you to authenticate Terraform CLI with your Terraform Cloud account.

The best way to handle CLI authentication is with the login and logout commands, which help automate the process of getting an API token for your Terraform Cloud user account.

For details, see:

• The terraform login command
• The terraform logout command