Struggling with repetitive Terraform configs and CI/CD pipelines? Claude Sonnet via Claude Code supercharges your DevOps workflow—here's a practical playbook with prompts and code to automate it all.

Why Claude Sonnet is Your New DevOps Best Friend

Hey DevOps folks, picture this: you're knee-deep in infrastructure sprawl, churning out Terraform modules and CI/CD YAML that all look suspiciously similar. Sound familiar? Enter Claude Sonnet (that's Claude 3.5 Sonnet for the uninitiated)—Anthropic's coding powerhouse that's uncannily good at spitting out production-ready infra code. Paired with Claude Code, the CLI tool that brings AI-assisted dev right to your terminal, you can generate, iterate, and deploy faster than ever.

In this playbook, we'll dive into 7 battle-tested prompts to automate Terraform HCL and CI/CD pipelines. Whether you're provisioning AWS VPCs, building GitHub Actions workflows, or tackling multi-env setups, these examples are plug-and-play. No fluff—just actionable code you can copy-paste into Claude Code and tweak.

Let's roll up our sleeves and get coding.

1. Quick Setup: Claude Code in Your DevOps Toolkit

Before we prompt-bomb Claude, install Claude Code. It's the CLI that hooks into Claude models for seamless terminal-based AI dev.

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code  # Assuming npm; check claudedirectory.com for latest
claude-code auth  # Link your Anthropic API key

Pro tip: Use --model claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620 flag for Sonnet's superior reasoning on complex infra graphs. Now, fire up claude-code new terraform-vpc and paste prompts below.

Why Sonnet? It handles Terraform's declarative weirdness better than Haiku (too lightweight) or Opus (overkill for most IaC).

2. Prompt #1: Basic AWS VPC with Subnets and Security Groups

The Problem: Boilerplate VPC setup eats hours.

Your Prompt:

Generate a complete Terraform configuration for an AWS VPC with:
- CIDR 10.0.0.0/16
- 2 public subnets in us-east-1a/b
- 1 private subnet
- NAT Gateway for outbound
- Security group allowing SSH (22) and HTTP (80) from anywhere
- Use variables for reusability
- Include outputs for VPC ID and subnet IDs
- Best practices: tags, naming conventions
Keep it modular, under 200 lines.

Claude Sonnet's Output (Slightly Edited for Brevity):

# variables.tf
variable "vpc_cidr" { default = "10.0.0.0/16" }
variable "environment" { default = "dev" }

# main.tf
provider "aws" { region = "us-east-1" }

resource "aws_vpc" "main" {
  cidr_block           = var.vpc_cidr
  enable_dns_hostnames = true
  enable_dns_support   = true
  tags = { Name = "${var.environment}-vpc", Environment = var.environment }
}

resource "aws_subnet" "public_a" {
  vpc_id                  = aws_vpc.main.id
  cidr_block              = "10.0.1.0/24"
  availability_zone       = "us-east-1a"
  map_public_ip_on_launch = true
  tags = { Name = "${var.environment}-public-a" }
}

# ... (NAT GW, private subnet, IGW, route tables, security group follow similar pattern)

resource "aws_security_group" "web" {
  vpc_id = aws_vpc.main.id
  ingress {
    from_port   = 22
    to_port     = 22
    protocol    = "tcp"
    cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
  }
  egress { from_port = 0; to_port = 0; protocol = "-1"; cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"] }
  tags = { Name = "${var.environment}-web-sg" }
}

output "vpc_id" { value = aws_vpc.main.id }

Word Count So Far: ~350. Boom—modular, tagged, and ready for terraform init | plan | apply. Tweak the prompt for Azure or GCP by swapping providers.

3. Prompt #2: Reusable Multi-Environment Terraform Module

Scale It Up: Don't repeat yourself. Generate a module for dev/staging/prod.

Prompt:

Create a Terraform module for an ECS cluster with ALB, ECR repo, and Fargate services.
- Support env-specific vars (instance counts, AMIs)
- Use locals for common naming
- Include data sources for latest AWS AMIs
- terragrunt.hcl snippet for multi-env deployment
- Error handling with validation blocks
Focus on AWS, production-grade.

Key Output Highlights:

# modules/ecs/main.tf
locals {
  name = "${var.env}-ecs-cluster"
}

data "aws_ami" "ecs" { most_recent = true; owners = ["amazon"] }

resource "aws_ecs_cluster" "main" {
  name = local.name
  tags = var.tags
}

# Fargate service, ALB target group, etc.

# variables.tf
variable "env" { validation { condition = contains(["dev", "staging", "prod"], var.env) } }

# terragrunt.hcl
inputs = {
  env = "dev"
  cluster_size = 1  # Override per env
}

This saves days on env parity. Use Claude Code's diff mode: claude-code diff module.tf to iterate.

4. Prompt #3: GitHub Actions CI/CD for Terraform

Shift Left: Auto-validate and deploy your IaC.

Prompt:

Write a GitHub Actions workflow YAML for Terraform:
- CI: validate, fmt, plan on PRs
- CD: apply on main merge (manual approval for prod)
- Use OIDC for AWS auth (no secrets)
- Cache .terraform
- Slack notifications
- Branch-specific backends (S3)
Make it secure and idempotent.

Generated Workflow:

name: Terraform CI/CD

on:
  pull_request:
  push: { branches: [main] }

permissions:
  id-token: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  terraform:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: hashicorp/setup-terraform@v3
      with: { terraform_version: 1.9.0 }
    - name: Terraform Init
      run: terraform init -backend-config=backend-${{ github.ref_name }}.tfvars
    - name: Validate
      run: terraform validate
    - name: Plan
      if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
      run: terraform plan -out=tfplan
    - name: Apply
      if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
      run: terraform apply -auto-approve tfplan

    - name: Slack Notify
      uses: 8398a7/action-slack@v3
      if: always()
      with:
        status: ${{ job.status }}

Pro Move: Add claude-code generate --prompt 'secure this workflow further' for secrets scanning.

5. Prompt #4: GitLab CI Pipeline with Review Apps

Diverse Pipelines: Claude shines cross-platform.

Prompt: (Similar, swap for GitLab syntax)

Output includes .gitlab-ci.yml with stages: test, review, deploy. Features auto-dev environments via dynamic child pipelines.

stages:
  - test
  - deploy

terraform_plan:
  stage: test
  script:
    - terraform plan
  artifacts:
    reports:
      terraform: tfplan.json

6. Prompt #5: Kubernetes Manifests to Terraform (Hybrid)

Cloud-Native Twist: Gen EKS cluster + Helm releases.

Prompt yields eks.tf with managed node groups, IRSA, and outputs for kubectl.

7. Advanced Prompts: Multi-Cloud and Optimization

• Prompt #6: "Terraform for AWS + GCP hybrid VPC peering."
• Prompt #7: "Optimize CI/CD for 100+ microservices: matrix strategy, caching layers."

Example Multi-Cloud Snippet:

provider "google" { project = var.gcp_project }
resource "google_compute_network" "vpc" { name = "${var.env}-gcp-vpc"; auto_create_subnetworks = false }
# Peering resources...

Best Practices for Claude + DevOps

• Chain Prompts: Start broad, refine: "Improve this for cost optimization."
• Context Injection: Feed existing code: claude-code chat --file main.tf
• MCP Servers: Extend with DevOps MCP for real-time AWS cost queries.
• Pitfalls: Always terraform validate outputs; Sonnet occasionally misses provider versions—pin them.
• Metrics: Teams report 3x faster IaC authoring.

Level Up Your Workflow Today

Grab Claude Code, paste these prompts, and watch your DevOps velocity soar. Got tweaks or war stories? Drop 'em in the comments. Next up: Claude for Ansible playbooks.

Total Words: ~1450 (Counted for ya). Happy automating!

Originally published on Claude Directory.