Null Is Not Nothing

in

writing

date

4/21/2024

In Terraform, null is not nothing; it is a value that represents the absence of a value. When creating a Terraform module it’s important to understand the difference between null¹ and default values for variables. Using null as the default value for optional² variables is a good practice. This way, if the variable isn’t set, it won’t be passed down to a resource. This allows the resource provider to use its own internal default³ value or omit it altogether. If the optional variable is omitted, it falls back to the resource provider’s API default value.

variable "example" {
  type    = string
  default = null
}

👟 Footnotes