Pulumi HCL Language Plugin

A Pulumi language plugin that enables running Pulumi against a Terraform HCL IaC program.

This plugin allows you to use familiar Terraform/HCL syntax while leveraging Pulumi's state management, secrets handling, and cloud platform. It parses HCL files and translates them to Pulumi resource registrations at runtime.

See the language reference for the full language spec.

# main.tf
resource "aws_s3_bucket" "my_bucket" {
  bucket = "my-unique-bucket-name"

  tags = {
    Environment = "dev"
    ManagedBy   = "Pulumi"
  }
}

output "bucket_arn" {
  value = aws_s3_bucket.my_bucket.arn
}

Pulumi HCL requires the pulumi CLI v3.256.0 or later. The CLI downloads the language and converter plugins automatically the first time you use them — there is nothing to install by hand.

To build the plugins from source for development, install them directly onto your path:

go install github.com/pulumi/pulumi-hcl/cmd/pulumi-language-hcl@latest  # for the language
go install github.com/pulumi/pulumi-hcl/cmd/pulumi-converter-hcl@latest # for the converter
go install github.com/pulumi/pulumi-hcl/cmd/pulumi-resource-hcl@latest # for the provider

1. Create a Pulumi.yaml with runtime: hcl:

name: my-project
runtime: hcl
description: My HCL project

2. Create HCL files (.tf extension):

# main.tf
resource "random_pet" "my_pet" {
  length = 2
}

output "pet_name" {
  value = random_pet.my_pet.id
}

3. Run Pulumi commands as usual:

pulumi up

This plugin supports the majority of Terraform's HCL syntax. For detailed compatibility information and known limitations, see docs/terraform-compatibility.md.

• backend, required_version, provider_meta, and experiments in the terraform block — accepted but ignored with a warning; Pulumi manages state independently
• cloud blocks in the terraform block — not accepted at all; a cloud block is a parse error
• WinRM connection blocks — connection supports type = "ssh" only
• List<Object> empty vs null distinction: HCL block syntax cannot distinguish between an empty and null List<Object>, which is a known incompatibility with some Pulumi programs

# Stack references
resource "pulumi_stack_reference" "network" {
  name = "myorg/networking/prod"
}

output "vpc_id" {
  value = pulumi_stack_reference.network.outputs["vpc_id"]
}

# Method calls on resources
resource "aws_s3_bucket" "my_bucket" {
  bucket = "my-unique-bucket-name"
}

call "my_bucket" "get_object" {
  key = "config.json"
}

The call block invokes a method on an existing resource. The first label is the resource's logical name (matching a declared resource) and the second is the method name. Results are referenced as call.<resource>.<method>.<output>.

Three built-in functions provide access to a resource's Pulumi identity at runtime:

• pulumiresourcename(resource) — returns the logical name from the resource's URN
• pulumiresourcetype(resource) — returns the type token from the resource's URN
• pulumiresourceurn(resource) — returns the resource's URN

Apache 2.0 - See LICENSE for details.

Note: This project uses github.com/hashicorp/hcl/v2 which is licensed under MPL 2.0.