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Managing Plugins

OpenTF relies on plugins called "providers" in order to manage various types of resources. (For more information about providers, see Providers in the OpenTF language docs.)

-> Note: Providers are the only plugin type most OpenTF users interact with. OpenTF also supports third-party provisioner plugins, but we discourage their use.

OpenTF downloads and/or installs any providers required by a configuration when initializing a working directory. By default, this works without any additional interaction but requires network access to download providers from their source registry.

You can configure OpenTF's provider installation behavior to limit or skip network access, and to enable use of providers that aren't available via a networked source. OpenTF also includes some commands to show information about providers and to reduce the effort of installing providers in airgapped environments.

Configuring Plugin Installation​

OpenTF's configuration file includes options for caching downloaded plugins, or explicitly specifying a local or HTTPS mirror to install plugins from. For more information, see CLI Config File.

Getting Plugin Information​

Use the opentf providers command to get information about the providers required by the current working directory's configuration.

Use the opentf version command (or opentf -version) to show the specific provider versions installed for the current working directory.

Use the opentf providers schema command to get machine-readable information about the resources and configuration options offered by each provider.

Managing Plugin Installation​

Use the opentf providers mirror command to download local copies of every provider required by the current working directory's configuration. This directory will use the nested directory layout that OpenTF expects when installing plugins from a local source, so you can transfer it directly to an airgapped system that runs OpenTF.

Use the opentf providers lock command to update the lock file that OpenTF uses to ensure predictable runs when using ambiguous provider version constraints.