🚀 Terraform S3 Native Locking Demo

Managing Terraform state securely and efficiently just got easier! With the release of Terraform v1.10+, you can now leverage native state locking using .tflock files directly in Amazon S3 — no more setting up a DynamoDB table.

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🎯 What's New?

Terraform now supports native .tflock files in S3. By simply adding use_lockfile = true to your backend configuration, Terraform handles locking natively:

No DynamoDB. No extra infra. Just a cleaner and simpler workflow.

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🔗 GitHub Repo: AkshaySiv/terraform-s3-locking-demo

📁 Project Structure

bashCopyEdit.
├── main.tf        # Creates a sample S3 bucket
├── backend.tf     # S3 backend config with native locking enabled
├── variables.tf   # Input variables (region, bucket name)
└── outputs.tf     # (Optional) Outputs to display bucket details

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🛠️ Prerequisites

• ✅ Terraform v1.10+

• ✅ S3 bucket must exist beforehand

• ✅ Versioning must be enabled on the S3 bucket (recommended)

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Backend Configuration (backend.tf)

Here, we're configuring the Terraform backend to use S3 for state storage with native locking enabled use_lockfile = true

Note: The specified S3 bucket must be created manually beforehand — Terraform will not create it for you.

terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket        = "akshay-my-terraform-state-bucket"
    key           = "state/terraform.tfstate"
    region        = "us-east-1"
    encrypt       = true
    use_lockfile  = true
  }
}

🪣 Sample Resource (main.tf)

This Terraform block creates an AWS S3 bucket named from the bucket_name variable and tags it with "Name=Terraform S3 Demo" and "Environment=Dev"

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "demo" {
  bucket = var.bucket_name

  tags = {
    Name        = "Terraform S3 Demo"
    Environment = "Dev"
  }
}

⚙️ Initialize & Apply

terraform init
terraform apply

During apply, you’ll notice a .tflock file pop up in your S3 bucket — this file represents the state lock. It will disappear automatically once the plan/apply is complete.

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🔐 Why Native Locking Rocks

• 🚫 No DynamoDB table required

• ⚡ Simpler setup

• 💰 Reduced cost

• 🧘‍♂️ Less maintenance overhead

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📘 References

• Terraform v1.10 Release Notes

• Terraform S3 Backend Documentation