Skip terraform resource if it exists

Question

I'm Getting an error creating a secret because it was created manually.

Error: error creating Secrets Manager Secret: ResourceExistsException: The operation failed because the secret <SECRET> already exists.

Is there any way to tell Terraform to skip creating a resource if it already exists?

Answer 1

Yes, Terraform provides a way to skip creating a resource if it already exists. This is achieved using the terraform import command, which allows you to import an existing resource into your Terraform state.

Once a resource has been imported into Terraform state, subsequent terraform apply commands will skip creating that resource if it already exists. However, it's important to note that if there are any changes to the resource configuration in your Terraform code, Terraform will still attempt to apply those changes to the existing resource.

To import an existing resource, you can use the following syntax:

terraform import <resource_type>.<resource_name> <resource_id>

Where <resource_type> is the type of resource you want to import, <resource_name> is the name of the resource within Terraform, and <resource_id> is the unique identifier of the existing resource.

For example, to import an existing AWS S3 bucket named "my-bucket" with the ID "my-bucket-id" into your Terraform state, you can use the following command:

terraform import aws_s3_bucket.my_bucket my-bucket-id 

After importing the resource, you can include it in your Terraform code as you normally would, and Terraform will skip creating it if it already exists.