Terraform Language Server

The official Terraform language server (terraform-ls) maintained by HashiCorp provides IDE features to any LSP-compatible editor.

Current Status

Not all language features (from LSP's or any other perspective) are available at the time of writing, but this is an active project with the aim of delivering smaller, incremental updates over time. You can review the LSP feature matrix.

We encourage you to browse existing issues and/or open new issue if you experience a bug or have an idea for a feature.

Stability

We aim to communicate our intentions regarding breaking changes via semver. Relatedly we may use pre-releases, such as MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH-beta1 to gather early feedback on certain features and changes.

We ask that you report any bugs in any versions but especially in pre-releases, if you decide to use them.

Installation

Some editors have built-in logic to install and update the language server automatically, so you may not need to worry about installation or updating of the server.

Read the installation page for installation instructions.

Usage

The most reasonable way you will interact with the language server is through a client represented by an IDE, or a plugin of an IDE.

Please follow the relevant guide for your IDE.

Credits

• Martin Atkins - particularly the virtual filesystem
• Zhe Cheng - research, design, prototyping assistance
• Julio Sueiras - particularly his language server implementation

Telemetry

The server will collect data only if the client requests it during initialization. Telemetry is opt-in by default.

Read more about telemetry.

terraform-ls VS terraform-lsp

Both HashiCorp and the maintainer of terraform-lsp expressed interest in collaborating on a language server and are working towards a long-term goal of a single stable and feature-complete implementation.

For the time being both projects continue to exist, giving users the choice:

• terraform-ls providing

  • overall stability (by relying only on public APIs)
  • compatibility with any provider and any Terraform >=0.12.0
  • currently less features
    • due to project being younger and relying on public APIs which may not offer the same functionality yet

• terraform-lsp providing

  • currently more features
  • compatibility with a single particular Terraform (0.12.20 at time of writing)
    • configs designed for other 0.12 versions may work, but interpretation may be inaccurate
  • less stability (due to reliance on Terraform's own internal packages)