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Prerequisites

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Required Tools

You will need to install some cli-tools. If you’ve set these up before, double-check that your versions meet the requirements.

AWS CLI

The AWS Command Line Interface.

Terragrunt

A thin wrapper for Terraform.

Terraform

Min. version: 1.11.3

Kubectl

For interacting with Kubernetes clusters

Helm

Package manager for Kubernetes

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Reduce Disk Usage

Fast Foundation modules are sourced from a dedicated git repository. Each terragrunt init clones modules and downloads provider plugins. Without caching, the AWS provider alone (~762 MB) gets duplicated in every unit’s .terraform/ directory — with 40+ units this adds up to tens of gigabytes of wasted disk space.

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Provider Plugin Cache (Required)

The provider plugin cache stores provider binaries once and hardlinks them into each unit, reducing per-unit storage overhead to effectively zero. Step 1: Create the cache directory:
Step 2: Create or edit ~/.terraformrc with these two lines:
Both lines are required. Without plugin_cache_may_break_dependency_lock_file, Terraform copies provider binaries instead of hardlinking them, negating the disk savings.
More information: Terraform Provider Plugin Cache documentation

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Additional Tips

  • Use --provider-cache flag when running terragrunt run --all init --provider-cache to leverage the cache during bulk initialization
  • Clean up .terraform/ directories periodically if disk space is a concern: find . -name ".terraform" -type d -exec rm -rf {} + (then re-run terragrunt init)
  • Avoid initializing the entire repo if you only work on a few accounts — run terragrunt init from the specific account or region folder instead