HashiCorp Updated Terraform-Associate-003 Exam Questions and Answers by peyton

Detailed Explanation:

Rationale for Correct Answers:

C. terraform.tfvars securely managed: Acceptable if distributed securely outside version control.

D. HCP Terraform/Terraform Cloud sensitive variables: Official best practice for team-based workflows.

E. Vault: HashiCorp Vault is designed for secret management and integrates well with Terraform.

Analysis of Incorrect Options:

A: Storing plaintext secrets on shared drives is insecure.

B: Checking secrets into version control is a major security risk.

Key Concept:Sensitive values should be managed securely in Vault, HCP Terraform, or securely shared .tfvars files — never in plaintext or version control.

The reason why the apply fails after adding a new provider to the configuration and immediately running terraform apply in the CD using the local backend is because Terraform needs to install the necessary plugins first. Terraform providers are plugins that Terraform uses to interact with various cloud services and other APIs. Each provider has a source address that determines where to downloadit from. When Terraform encounters a new provider in the configuration, it needs to run terraform init first to install the provider plugins in a local directory. Without the plugins, Terraform cannot communicate with the provider and perform the desired actions. References = [Provider Requirements], [Provider Installation]

According to theofficial Terraform documentationhere:

????Terraform Docs – Declaring an Output Value

In Terraform 0.12 and later, you can directly use expressions in outputs without interpolation syntax:

output "instance_ip_addr" {

value = aws_instance.server.private_ip

}

This aligns perfectly withOption A:

output "instance_ip_addr" {

value = aws_instance.main.private_ip

}

Why not the others?

❌Option B: Incorrect syntax. "${main.private_ip}" is referencing main as if it were a global variable or resource, but it isn’t defined. Plus, the output name is oddly written as aws_instance.instance_ip_addr, which is not a valid identifier format.

❌Option C: Although valid in older versions (<= 0.11), interpolation with "${}" isdeprecatedin Terraform 0.12+. The docs clearly advise using direct expressions instead.

❌Option D: Terraform hasno return statement; this is syntactically invalid in Terraform’s HCL.

You need to write Terraform configuration files for the existing infrastructure that you want to import into Terraform, otherwise Terraform will not know how to manage it. The configuration files should match the type and name of the resources that you want to import.