How To GitOps Your Terraform

Author

Govardhana M K
September 20, 2025

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🧠 DEEP DIVE USE CASE

How To GitOps Your Terraform

Typically, teams begin their DevOps journey with CI/CD pipelines to automate application builds, tests, and deployments. As scaling needs grow, infrastructure shifts to Kubernetes environments where GitOps becomes the natural evolution for managing continuous delivery with strong auditability and rollback safety.

Sooner or later, Terraform kind becomes part of daily operations as the standard Infrastructure as Code tool. At that point the real question emerges: how do we bring the same GitOps principles that work well for Kubernetes workloads into Terraform driven infrastructure?

Before getting into that context, let us understand how a typical GitOps CI/CD pipeline works. A GitOps controller watches for changes, and only then syncs the declared state to the cluster. Deployment decisions now come from version controlled Git commits, not scripts embedded in pipelines.

It’s time to understand how GitOps push and pull approaches handle deployments differently.

GitOps Push Approach

  • The CI pipeline handles testing, image building, and deployment in one flow.

  • After updating the manifest or Helm chart, the pipeline executes a deploy step using tools like kubectl or Helm.

  • The CI system holds direct access to the Kubernetes cluster, often via service accounts or kubeconfig.

  • Any pipeline error, script issue, or misconfiguration can directly affect live environments.

  • Centralized control is achieved, but at the cost of higher security risk and tighter coupling.

  • Scaling this model across multiple clusters or clouds requires complex secrets management and permissions setup.

GitOps Pull Approach

  • The CI pipeline stops after updating the Git repository with new image versions or manifests.

  • A GitOps agent (like ArgoCD or Flux) inside the cluster continuously monitors the Git repo.

  • The cluster pulls changes when detected, then reconciles its state to match the repo.

  • The CI system has no access to the cluster, reducing security risks and improving auditability.

  • Each cluster acts independently, pulling from the same or environment-specific Git repos.

  • Rollbacks are simplified by reverting commits in Git, and the system heals itself automatically.

Once the differences between push and pull are clear, the next question is GitOps with Terraform.

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