Best Practices

Follow these best practices to get the most out of Patterned Designs modules.

Topics

• Naming Conventions - Consistent resource naming
• Tagging - Resource tagging strategies

General Guidelines

Version Pinning

Always pin module versions in production:

version = "1.2.3"  # Specific version

State Management

Use remote state backends for team environments:

• S3 with DynamoDB locking
• Terraform Cloud
• Other supported backends

Code Organization

Structure your Terraform code by environment and component:

infrastructure/
├── environments/
│   ├── dev/
│   ├── staging/
│   └── production/
└── modules/
    └── (local wrapper modules)

Documentation

Document your infrastructure:

• Describe the purpose of each configuration
• Note any manual steps required
• Keep READMEs up to date