tfdrift

Continuous Terraform drift detection, reporting, and auto-remediation.

[](https://www.python.org/downloads/

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tfdrift is a Python CLI tool that monitors your Terraform-managed infrastructure for drift — changes made outside of Terraform workflows (console clicks, scripts, other tools). It scans your Terraform workspaces, detects discrepancies between state and reality, generates structured reports, and optionally auto-remediates or notifies your team.

Why tfdrift? The most popular open-source drift detection tool (driftctl) has been in maintenance mode since mid-2023. Enterprise solutions like Terraform Enterprise cost $15K+/year. tfdrift fills the gap: a free, modern, actively maintained CLI that does one thing well.

Features

• Multi-workspace scanning — Recursively discovers all Terraform workspaces in a directory tree
• Structured drift reports — JSON, Markdown, or human-readable table output
• Severity classification — Categorizes drift by risk level (critical/high/medium/low) based on resource type and attribute
• Slack & webhook notifications — Get alerted the moment drift is detected
• Auto-remediation — Optionally run terraform apply to fix drift (with safety guards)
• CI/CD friendly — Exit codes, JSON output, and GitHub Actions integration out of the box
• Watch mode — Continuously monitor for drift on a schedule
• Ignore rules — Filter out known/expected drift with .tfdriftignore

Quick start

Install

pip install tfdrift

Scan for drift

# Scan current directory for all Terraform workspaces
tfdrift scan

# Scan a specific directory
tfdrift scan --path /path/to/terraform

# Output as JSON
tfdrift scan --format json

# Output as Markdown report
tfdrift scan --format markdown --output drift-report.md

Watch mode (continuous monitoring)

# Check every 30 minutes, notify Slack on drift
tfdrift watch --interval 30m --slack-webhook https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXX

Auto-remediate

# Auto-fix drift in dev (requires --confirm for safety)
tfdrift scan --auto-fix --confirm --env dev

# Dry run — show what would be fixed
tfdrift scan --auto-fix --dry-run

Configuration

Create a .tfdrift.yml in your project root:

# .tfdrift.yml
scan:
  paths:
    - ./infrastructure
    - ./modules
  exclude:
    - "**/test/**"
    - "**/.terraform/**"
  # Auto-detect .tfvars files in each workspace (default: true)
  auto_detect_var_files: true
  # Or specify explicit var files
  var_files:
    - envs/dev.tfvars
  # Or pass variables directly
  vars:
    environment: production
    region: us-east-1

severity:
  critical:
    - aws_security_group.*.ingress
    - aws_iam_policy.*.policy
    - aws_s3_bucket.*.acl
  high:
    - aws_instance.*.instance_type
    - aws_rds_instance.*.engine_version

notifications:
  slack:
    webhook_url: ${SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL}
    channel: "#infra-alerts"
    min_severity: high
  webhook:
    url: ${WEBHOOK_URL}
    method: POST

remediation:
  auto_fix: false
  allowed_environments:
    - dev
    - staging
  require_approval: true
  max_changes: 5  # safety limit

ignore:
  # Ignore expected drift
  - resource: aws_autoscaling_group.*
    attribute: desired_capacity
  - resource: aws_ecs_service.*
    attribute: desired_count

Ignore rules

Create a .tfdriftignore file to skip known drift:

# Autoscaling changes are expected
aws_autoscaling_group.*.desired_capacity
aws_ecs_service.*.desired_count

# Tags managed by external system
*.tags.LastModified
*.tags.UpdatedBy

CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions

# .github/workflows/drift-check.yml
name: Terraform Drift Check
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 */6 * * *'  # Every 6 hours
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  drift-check:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: hashicorp/setup-terraform@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.11'
      - run: pip install tfdrift
      - run: tfdrift scan --format json --output drift-report.json
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        if: failure()
        with:
          name: drift-report
          path: drift-report.json

GitLab CI

drift-check:
  image: python:3.11
  before_script:
    - pip install tfdrift
    - apt-get update && apt-get install -y terraform
  script:
    - tfdrift scan --format json --output drift-report.json
  rules:
    - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "schedule"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - drift-report.json
    when: on_failure

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	No drift detected
1	Drift detected
2	Error during scan
3	Drift detected and auto-remediated

Architecture

tfdrift/
├── commands/        # CLI command handlers (scan, watch, init)
├── detectors/       # Drift detection engine (terraform plan parser)
├── reporters/       # Output formatters (JSON, Markdown, table, Slack)
├── remediators/     # Auto-fix logic with safety guards
├── config.py        # Configuration loader (.tfdrift.yml)
├── models.py        # Data models (DriftResult, Resource, etc.)
├── severity.py      # Severity classification engine
└── cli.py           # CLI entry point (Click)

Comparison with alternatives

Feature	tfdrift	driftctl (archived)	terraform plan	Terraform Enterprise
Active maintenance	✅	❌ (since 2023)	✅	✅
Multi-workspace scan	✅	❌	❌	✅
Severity classification	✅	❌	❌	❌
Auto-remediation	✅	❌	❌	✅
Slack/webhook alerts	✅	✅	❌	✅
Watch mode	✅	❌	❌	✅
Ignore rules	✅	✅	❌	❌
Cost	Free	Free	Free	$15K+/yr
Language	Python	Go	Go (HCL)	Proprietary

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

# Development setup
git clone https://github.com/sudarshan8417/tfdrift.git
cd tfdrift
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

Inspired by driftctl and the Terraform community's need for maintained, open-source drift detection tooling.

Built With

• dockerfile
• makefile
• python