How to make a simple terraform API request

Latest version of Rancher 2.6.X
Rancher Terraform Provider 1.24.1+
Latest Version of Terraform 1.3.1+
User with a token created via the API and proper permissions to the local Rancher cluster.

Local directory for terraform plan files (name.tf) and a local terraform.tfstate file.

Sometimes it is necessary to create a basic skeleton for beginning a task, like using the Rancher2 Terraform Provider to speak with the Rancher API.
This represents a starting point to choose a simple read-only task like "query the cluster information for the local Rancher cluster".

• terraform init -- download needed files like the rancher2 terraform provider
• terraform plan -- compare the environment to the state file, plan is like a diff of any changes to be made
• terraform apply -- apply the planned changes
• terraform refresh -- update the state to match remote systems
• terraform output -- show output values from the main.tf plan
• terraform destroy -- clean up anything created by terraform
• terraform fmt -- spacing is important in HCL, terraform's language, use this command to format all spacing in the current working directory

To get started, create a directory to hold all of the files.  Terraform will examine the local file or files, and then populate a local terraform.tfstate data file which represents the most recent refresh of the information from the Rancher API.  The files below can be separate or all together in a main.tf file.  Separating plan files into individual pieces can make managing a larger project easier.  Terraform will take actions required using variables supplied by the user or admin, or computed during the "apply" operation.  As a typical rule of thumb for any provider, "data" sources are read operations while "resource" operations are write/create/change.

Upon running "terraform apply" with the main.tf file below, terraform will contact the Rancher API, authenticate, request the cluster_info for the local Rancher cluster with ID "local" and store it into the terraform statefile, as well as output to the screen.  The comments explain a potential name for each file, the only requirement that it ends in "tf".

### tfvars.tf or environment.tf

#  these outline the url speaking to, and the authorization token 

variable "api_url" {
  description = "rancher api url"
  default     = "https://urlto.rancher-fqdn.com/v3"
}

variable "token_key" {
  description = "api key to use for tf"
  default     = "token-nameid:jwt-long-hash-string"
}


### providers.tf

# use the variables from the earlier section to define the provider

provider "rancher2" {
  api_url   = var.api_url
  token_key = var.token_key
  insecure  = true
}


### versions.tf

# tell terraform what versions of providers and terraform itself, to expect

terraform {
  required_providers {
    rancher2 = {
      source  = "rancher/rancher2"
      version = ">= 1.24.1"
    }
  }
  required_version = ">= 1.3.1"
}


### main.tf 

## hard-coded example, read cluster info for local 
## export with 'terraform output cluster_info'

data "rancher2_cluster" "local" {
  name = "local"
}

output "cluster_info" {
  value     = data.rancher2_cluster.local
}