HashiCorp Infrastructure Automation Certification

Prerequisites

• Basic terminal skills
• Basic understanding of on premises and cloud architecture

Product Version Tested

Terraform 0.14 and higher.

Preparing for the Exam

The Terraform Associate exam has both a study guide and a review guide. While much of the information in these two guides are the same, they are presented differently for different uses. Use the study guide if you want to study all the exam objectives. Use the review guide if you already have Terraform experience and want to choose which objectives to review before taking the exam. We provide sample questions so you know what to expect when taking the exam.

Exam Details

Assessment Type	Multiple choice
Format	Online proctored
Duration	1 hour
Price	$70.50 USD plus locally applicable taxes and fees
Language	English
Expiration	2 years

Exam Objectives

1	Understand infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts
1a	Explain what IaC is
1b	Describe advantages of IaC patterns

2	Understand Terraform's purpose (vs other IaC)
2a	Explain multi-cloud and provider-agnostic benefits
2b	Explain the benefits of state

3	Understand Terraform basics
3a	Handle Terraform and provider installation and versioning
3b	Describe plugin based architecture
3c	Demonstrate using multiple providers
3d	Describe how Terraform finds and fetches providers
3e	Explain when to use and not use provisioners and when to use local-exec or remote-exec

4	Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow)
4a	Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform fmt to format code
4b	Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform taint to taint Terraform resources
4c	Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform import to import existing infrastructure into your Terraform state
4d	Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform workspace to create workspaces
4e	Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform state to view Terraform state
4f	Given a scenario: choose when to enable verbose logging and what the outcome/value is

5	Interact with Terraform modules
5a	Contrast module source options
5b	Interact with module inputs and outputs
5c	Describe variable scope within modules/child modules
5d	Discover modules from the public Terraform Module Registry
5e	Defining module version

6	Navigate Terraform workflow
6a	Describe Terraform workflow ( Write -> Plan -> Create )
6b	Initialize a Terraform working directory (terraform init)
6c	Validate a Terraform configuration (terraform validate)
6d	Generate and review an execution plan for Terraform (terraform plan)
6e	Execute changes to infrastructure with Terraform (terraform apply)
6f	Destroy Terraform managed infrastructure (terraform destroy)

7	Implement and maintain state
7a	Describe default local backend
7b	Outline state locking
7c	Handle backend authentication methods
7d	Describe remote state storage mechanisms and supported standard backends
7e	Describe effect of Terraform refresh on state
7f	Describe backend block in configuration and best practices for partial configurations
7g	Understand secret management in state files

8	Read, generate, and modify configuration
8a	Demonstrate use of variables and outputs
8b	Describe secure secret injection best practice
8c	Understand the use of collection and structural types
8d	Create and differentiate resource and data configuration
8e	Use resource addressing and resource parameters to connect resources together
8f	Use Terraform built-in functions to write configuration
8g	Configure resource using a dynamic block
8h	Describe built-in dependency management (order of execution based)

9	Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities
9a	Describe the benefits of Sentinel, registry, and workspaces
9b	Differentiate OSS and TFE workspaces
9c	Summarize features of Terraform Cloud