I have a custom Terraform provider. When something goes wrong, I want to print a standard error message that includes the version of Terraform that ran the provider. This provides a copy and paste error message that can be sent to a support team.

How can I find the Terraform version from within a custom provider so it can be printed in an error message?

I have a custom Terraform provider. When something goes wrong, I want to print a standard error message that includes the version of Terraform that ran the provider. This provides a copy and paste error message that can be sent to a support team.

How can I find the Terraform version from within a custom provider so it can be printed in an error message?

• terraform

• This is a good question that got me thinking. The more I think about the more I am not sure if thats even possible. Your provider is compiled and published as a standalone executable. When the terraform root module defines your provider and version terraform will fetch the exe that matches the OS architecture. Terraform will then start your provider as a standalone process and use GRPC calls to talk to it. I dont think the provider is ever aware of whats on the other side of that GRPC call. – Chris Doyle Commented Feb 16 at 8:40
• That being said, I just had a look in the terraform framework plugin sdk and it looks like it receives terraform meta data when the plugin is first configured github/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-framework/blob/… TerraformVersion string so you might be able to get reference to it through the request context – Chris Doyle Commented Feb 16 at 8:50

1 Answer 1

So I managed to get time to mock this up, and yes it is possible. Some of it will depend on the design of your provider. I have mocked this up with terraform framework plugin format which is the more modern way to write providers.

This example consists of 3 files.

• internal/provider/provider.go
• internal/helpers/helpers.go
• internal/service/equipment/equipment_data_source.go

provider.go Here we can get the terraform version from the provider configure request and store it as a var in helpers.go

func (p *MyProvider) Configure(ctx context.Context, req provider.ConfigureRequest, resp *provider.ConfigureResponse) {
    helpers.TerraformVersion = req.TerraformVersion
    ...
    ...

helpers.go

a package to hold the var (it cant be stored in the provider.go because of circular import cycles)

var TerraformVersion string

equipment.go

func (d *EquipmentDataSource) Read(ctx context.Context, req datasource.ReadRequest, resp *datasource.ReadResponse) {
    tflog.Info(ctx, "Running data source", map[string]interface{}{"terraformVersion": helpers.TerraformVersion})
    var data EquipmentDataSourceModel
    ...
    ...

Now if i check my CLI for which version of terraform I am using

$ terraform --version
2025-02-17T16:39:42.417Z [INFO]  Terraform version: 1.8.2

if I now run a terraform plan using the data source setting the log level to info

$ TF_LOG=info terraform plan
...

2025-02-17T16:40:32.553Z [INFO]  provider.terraform-provider-foobar.exe: Running data source: tf_req_id=b117bcae-3444-2178-9c9f-24c8e2eebbfe @caller=C:/Projects/GoLand/terraform-provider-foobar/
internal/services/device-service/equipment_data_source.go:131 @module=foobarterraformVersion=1.8.2 tf_data_source_type=foobar_equipment tf_provider_addr=hashicorp/edu/foobartf_rpc=ReadDataSource timestamp=2025-02-17T16:40:32.553Z
...

In the output we can see its logging the terraform version I am running this with

terraformVersion=1.8.2