new-terraform-provider_skill

Overview

This skill scaffolds a new Terraform provider using the HashiCorp Plugin Framework. It creates a clean workspace, initializes a Go module, installs the framework dependency, generates a ready-to-build main.go, and validates the build and tests. The workflow ensures a consistent starting point for provider development.

How this skill works

It interacts with your current shell workspace and, if needed, creates a new directory prefixed with "terraform-provider-". The skill runs Go module initialization, installs the plugin framework, writes a canonical main.go based on the provided example, cleans up TODOs, tidies dependencies, builds, and runs tests to verify the scaffold. If you are already in a provider workspace, it prompts to confirm creating a separate workspace and skips all steps if you decline.

When to use it

• Starting development of a new Terraform provider from scratch.
• Onboarding a new provider repository with the official Plugin Framework.
• Creating a reproducible scaffold for contributor-friendly development.
• Verifying initial build and unit test setup for a provider template.

Best practices

• Always use a new directory named with the terraform-provider- prefix to follow community conventions.
• Confirm workspace creation when already inside an existing provider project to avoid accidental nesting.
• Remove placeholder TODOs from main.go before committing to keep the codebase clean.
• Run go mod tidy and go build locally to catch dependency and compiler issues early.
• Run go test ./... to validate unit tests and ensure baseline stability.

Example use cases

• Quickly scaffold a provider named terraform-provider-foo to start implementing resource and data source code.
• Set up a standard provider template for an organization to enforce consistent structure across providers.
• Create a disposable workspace to experiment with the Plugin Framework without modifying existing repositories.
• Prepare a minimal, buildable provider sample to demonstrate plugin framework usage in documentation or training.