https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/modules#t... is what Terraform calls the module in the current directory, to distinguish it from child modules you might introduce.

Ok I may absolutely have the dumb today I appreciate the response. The way this is worded, because of this line - "Modules are the main way to package and reuse resource configurations with Terraform." reads like - "I have 10 golang apps, they all at a minimum use these same services, this is our "golang root module". But some services might have more or less modules, ie service A uses redis, service B uses kafka without redis.

So in this verbiage, is every single "stack/app" a "root module" and if one of them has a different database/whatever module it's just using different child modules and the child modules are the big differentiator?

Just to kind of prove the root-module argument I'm making here, this post in here is confused on calling a "stack" a module as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37005949

Glad we cleared up our terminology! I agree that “root module” risks ambiguity, just like you point out.

I just realized I never responded to the very last point in your original comment. I don’t have, and I don’t think Terraform has, a complete solution to dependencies between root modules. Fortunately, data sources will at least fail if they don’t find what they’re looking for. For me, these failures never come up in production since I’m never using `terraform destroy` there. It does come up in pre-production testing and that’s an area that seems rich with patterns and products on top of Terraform that are controlling order and dependence between root modules.

PS thanks for your work on Terraform and Kubernetes.

Use 'terraform destroy' during CI phase. That is your pre-prod.

Root-module: contains resources, sub-modules, incl. remote module calls.

Stack: deployable with hardcoded tfstate and tfvars configs.

My 2ç as also a (very minor) terraform core, and numerous providers & modules contributor, and user (also 2015 I think): I've never heard of 'terraform stacks' before this thread, but 'root module' makes perfect sense to me:

1) without the context of where the state is/its contents, or estimating based on the resources/style/what's variable vs. hardcoded, a 'stack' (if you like) is indistinguishable from a module that's to be used in someone else's 'stack';

2) `path.root`

lol That's interesting. I feel like all of the TACOS (spacelift, env0, atlantis) refer to stacks.

Thanks for your response It's great to hear corroboration

> it's always ALBs, EKS, dbs, etc. components indepedently that go into creating a service/stack

More importantly, modules represent the DRY principles. We host them in our private Terraform registry and share between teams

Root module is the official terminology used in Hashicorps own documentation. That's actually the term I'm most familiar with in my own experience.

https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/modules/s...

> Every Terraform configuration has at least one module, known as its root module, which consists of the resources defined in the .tf files in the main working directory.