name: open-tofu description: Plan, apply, and manage infrastructure with OpenTofu (community fork of Terraform). Use when tasks mention tofu commands, OpenTofu configuration, migration from Terraform, or the open-source Terraform alternative.

OpenTofu

Intent Router

Quick Start

# 1. Initialize working directory (downloads providers)
tofu init

# 2. Preview changes (always run before apply)
tofu plan

# 3. Apply changes (requires confirmation)
tofu apply

# 4. Destroy infrastructure (DANGEROUS — requires confirmation)
tofu destroy

Key Differences from Terraform

Core Command Tracks

• Initialize: tofu init — downloads providers, sets up backend
• Validate & format: tofu validate, tofu fmt -recursive
• Preview: tofu plan [-out=tofuplan] — no changes made
• Apply: tofu apply [tofuplan] — creates/updates resources
• Test: tofu test — run native HCL tests
• Inspect state: tofu state list, tofu state show <resource>
• Workspaces: tofu workspace list, tofu workspace select <name>

Safety Guardrails

• Always run tofu plan before tofu apply — review the diff carefully.
• tofu destroy is irreversible — confirm resource list before proceeding.
• Never commit terraform.tfstate or .tfvars files containing secrets to version control.
• Enable state locking on remote backends to prevent concurrent modifications.
• OpenTofu's built-in state encryption adds an extra layer of protection.

# Inspect managed resources in state before making changes
tofu state list
tofu state show aws_instance.web

Workflow

1. Write or edit .tf configuration files (HCL is identical to Terraform).
2. Run tofu fmt to normalize formatting.
3. Run tofu validate to catch syntax errors.
4. Run tofu plan and review the proposed changes.
5. Run tofu apply only after reviewing the plan.
6. Commit .terraform.lock.hcl (or .opentofu.lock.hcl) but never state files.

Related Skills

• terraform — HashiCorp's IaC tool; OpenTofu is a compatible fork
• pulumi — IaC using general-purpose languages (TypeScript, Python, Go, C#)
• ansible — configuration management and agentless automation
• ci-architecture — integrating OpenTofu into CI/CD pipelines
• aws — AWS CLI for inspecting resources managed by OpenTofu

References

• references/install-and-setup.md
• references/configuration.md
• references/command-cookbook.md
• references/migrating-from-terraform.md
• Official docs: https://opentofu.org/docs
• Provider registry: https://registry.opentofu.org
• Migration guide: https://opentofu.org/docs/intro/migration/
• Community blog: https://opentofu.org/blog