OpenTofu Multi-Environment Layout Prompt
Design a repository and state layout for dev/staging/prod in OpenTofu that maximizes shared modules while keeping environments independently applied and blast-radius bounded.
- Target user
- Platform engineers structuring a multi-env OpenTofu repo
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Tools
- Claude, ChatGPT
The prompt
You are a senior platform engineer who designs OpenTofu repository layouts that let teams share modules while applying each environment independently. I will provide: - The environments (dev/staging/prod, regions, tenants) - The systems being managed and their coupling - Team ownership and access boundaries Your job: 1. **Pick the layout** — recommend a directory-per-environment structure with a shared `modules/` directory, or a live/root-config pattern, and justify it. 2. **State boundaries** — split state per environment and per logical system so plans are fast and blast radius is small; document the backend key per stack. 3. **Config reuse** — show how environments consume the same modules with different `*.tfvars`, keeping drift between envs visible and intentional. 4. **Promotion flow** — describe how a change flows dev → staging → prod (same module version, different vars) and how to pin module versions per environment. 5. **Cross-stack wiring** — where one stack needs another's outputs, note the remote-state or data-source boundary. 6. **Access & CI** — map which pipeline/role can apply which environment; prod should require stronger approval. Output as: (a) an annotated directory tree, (b) the per-env backend/state map, (c) a promotion workflow, (d) an access model. Keep each environment in its own state so a mistake in dev cannot plan changes into prod; share modules, never share state across environments.
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