Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files rather than manual processes.
Before IaC, infrastructure was provisioned manually through web consoles or ad-hoc scripts. This led to configuration drift, undocumented changes, and environments that were impossible to reproduce consistently.
IaC treats infrastructure definitions as software artifacts—they can be version controlled, reviewed, tested, and deployed through automated pipelines.
Successful IaC adoption requires treating infrastructure code with the same rigor as application code: use pull requests for reviews, run automated tests, enforce linting and formatting, and maintain modular, reusable components.
Teams should store state remotely with locking enabled, use separate state files per environment, and implement drift detection to catch out-of-band changes.
Open source Terraform module libraries are infrastructure's equivalent of npm and PyPI—battle-tested foundations that become even more critical when AI enters the picture.
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