Don't use terraform workspaces

Don't use terraform workspaces. It's dangerous, and there is better alternatives. Workspaces should probably be removed from terraform.

Let's look at an example, so you think I want an exact replica of a dev environment, and prod environment with as few files as possible.

So let's have:

infrastructure/
├── main.tf
├── variables.tf
├── outputs.tf
└── terraform.tfvars

And you create two workspaces, dev and prod:

# Create workspaces
terraform workspace new dev
terraform workspace new prod

# List workspaces (* shows current workspace)
terraform workspace list

# Switch between workspaces
terraform workspace select dev

Once done you want a plan, and assuming everything is well apply. So:

terraform plan
terraform apply

Okay great, dev is done. Now, prod:

terraform workspace select prod
terraform plan
terraform apply

Cool all done. Now, let's say you come back, and want to do something quick in dev, and forget you left it in prod:

terraform plan
terraform apply

Oops... you just deployed to prod. If you forget terraform workspace select dev, you can easily break prod, and if you want to do some small changes in one environment it's easy to get confused.

Instead, try this:

infrastructure/
├── environments/
│   ├── dev/
│   │   └── main.tf
│   └── prod/
│       └── main.tf
├── modules/
│   └── base_infrastructure/
│       ├── main.tf
│       ├── variables.tf
│       └── outputs.tf
└── provider.tf

And use:

cd environments/dev
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

This might be easily in a script:

terraform -chdir=environments/dev plan
terraform -chdir=environments/dev apploy

For prod:

terraform -chdir=environments/prod plan
terraform -chdir=environments/prod apploy

This approach has more files, but it is a lot easier, and less error prone.