Terrascratch: aprendendo Terraform de maneira interativa.

Abstract

Terraform is a popular tool that allows for infrastructure provisioning through code. As it is a relatively new technology, intuitive and educational materials are scarce, limited to tutorial videos and traditional documentation, which discourages beginners interested in learning this tool. Based on this fact, Terrascratch was developed: an intuitive tool that facilitates the learning process. Terrascratch enables the use of visual elements representing Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure components and generates the corresponding Terraform code. The requirements gathering for the tool was conducted through a workshop, and its effectiveness was assessed via qualitative experiments with potential users in a second workshop. We conducted a presentation and a series of interviews with the participants. As a result, we observed that Terrascratch is effective for users without prior knowledge of Terraform, particularly for those with basic AWS knowledge, but not as useful for users with intermediate or advanced knowledge.