Déjà Vu? Redundant Dependencies in Terraform
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) enables practitioners to provision cloud infrastructure through declarative specifications. In Terraform, developers can define explicit dependencies to enforce execution order when implicit dependencies are insufficient. However, developers may explicitly declare dependencies that are already captured by expression references. Such redundant dependencies add unnecessary complexity and, more importantly, may cause Terraform to produce overly conservative plans and unnecessarily constrain the order in which infrastructure objects are provisioned.
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Awards: InfraGov: Framework Pública para Infraestrutura IT Confiável e Segura, Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa, SafeIaC: Análise e Reparação Automática para Infraestrutura como Código, Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa
OpenAlex ID: W7221024113