¶ Atlantis
¶ Dev Ops
¶ Introduction to Atlantis: Bringing Calm, Control, and Collaboration to Terraform Automation
In the fast-paced world of DevOps, there comes a point when teams realize that infrastructure is no longer something that can be managed with ad hoc scripts, quick fixes, and manual updates. Cloud systems grow, microservices multiply, and infrastructure becomes a living organism with countless moving parts. The more complex it becomes, the more dangerous it is to rely on human memory or improvised workflows. At this stage, the need for predictability, repeatable processes, and controlled automation becomes unmistakable. And in organizations that rely on Terraform for infrastructure management, this need often leads to the same discovery: Terraform is powerful, but without automation, collaboration, and guardrails, it can quickly grow chaotic.
This is the world in which Atlantis steps in—a system that doesn’t try to reinvent Terraform, but rather surrounds it with a workflow that brings clarity and order. Atlantis isn’t loud or flashy. It doesn’t fight for attention with shiny dashboards or complex new languages. It does something simpler and more meaningful: it brings collaboration, transparency, and automation to Terraform operations using the tools developers already use daily—Git, pull requests, and code reviews.
Before we dive into the technical depths across the next hundred articles, it’s important to first understand what Atlantis represents. It’s not just another DevOps tool. It’s a way of rethinking how teams interact with infrastructure, how changes get reviewed, and how automation can reinforce—not replace—responsible engineering. Learning Atlantis is learning to build a workflow where infrastructure changes are not only automated, but governed, documented, and visible.
You’re about to embark on a journey into a tool that quietly transforms the way teams manage infrastructure, often without them even noticing that their process has changed. It’s the kind of transformation that feels natural, because Atlantis fits into the existing flow rather than forcing teams to adapt to an entirely new system.
¶ The Problem Atlantis Was Built to Solve
Terraform is one of the most influential tools in the DevOps movement. It allows cloud infrastructure to be managed as code, versioned, reviewed, and automated. But even with its elegance, the real challenge lies not in Terraform itself but in how teams use it.
In a growing organization, Terraform workflows often start simply: a few engineers run commands locally, coordinate over messages, and apply changes manually. But as infrastructure expands, manual workflows crack under the pressure. Uncoordinated changes lead to race conditions. Local state files get corrupted or drift out of sync. Developers forget to run a plan before an apply. Someone applies a change directly to production without review. And soon, what started as a well-intentioned IaC process turns into a fragile system fueled by unwritten rules and tribal knowledge.
This is the gap Atlantis fills.
Atlantis gives teams a consistent, automated workflow where Terraform plans and applies happen not on laptops but in a controlled environment, triggered by pull requests. Instead of relying on trust alone, Atlantis reinforces collaboration through code review. Instead of hoping people follow the process, Atlantis becomes the process.
It solves the hidden problems—those quiet risks that often go unnoticed until something breaks. It ensures that Terraform remains not only a powerful tool, but a safe one.
¶ What Makes Atlantis Different
There’s no shortage of automation tools in the DevOps ecosystem, but Atlantis stands out because it focuses on doing one thing extremely well: creating a collaborative Terraform workflow that revolves around version control.
Rather than building a new UI or inventing a new system of pipelines, Atlantis embeds itself directly into the Git workflow developers are already comfortable with. When a pull request is opened, Atlantis listens. When changes are pushed, it responds. And when a reviewer approves a change, Atlantis executes Terraform in a predictable and isolated way.
Atlantis doesn’t try to replace continuous integration systems or the broader DevOps toolchain. Instead, it acts like a specialized assistant that watches over infrastructure changes and makes sure they happen the right way.
What makes Atlantis particularly appealing is that it doesn’t hide its inner workings. When it runs Terraform, it posts the plan or the result directly in the pull request. Everyone can see what will happen before it happens. There’s no mystery, no opaque build logs buried in some distant CI server. The review process becomes a shared conversation inside the PR, where context and decisions live together.
This subtle shift—bringing Terraform to the pull request—changes how teams reason about infrastructure. It turns changes into discussions. It turns risk into awareness. And it turns best practices into habits that are naturally followed.
¶ A Workflow Built Around Collaboration
Infrastructure changes were once the domain of specialized engineers—people who kept mental maps of cloud architecture and made changes manually when needed. But modern DevOps isn’t built around individuals. It’s built around collaboration, shared responsibility, and transparency. Atlantis embraces this by making infrastructure changes visible to everyone on the team.
When a developer proposes a change, Atlantis generates a Terraform plan automatically. The plan appears directly in the PR, where teammates can review it, ask questions, add comments, and suggest improvements. Instead of a single engineer shouldering the responsibility, the team collectively validates and approves the change.
And when the time comes to apply it, Atlantis does so only after explicit approval. It respects permissions, it respects workflows, and it ensures no one bypasses reviews—not by forcing compliance through enforcement, but by making the expected workflow easy and reliable.
This collaborative model doesn’t just prevent mistakes—it builds trust. Teams feel confident knowing that every change is reviewed, discussed, and applied with visibility. Even in complex environments with dozens of engineers, Atlantis helps maintain a sense of calm and order.
¶ Automation Without Over-Automation
One of the delicate balancing acts in DevOps is automation. Too little automation leads to inconsistencies and slow processes. Too much automation can strip engineers of awareness and control, leading to surprising failures. Atlantis deliberately sits in the sweet spot.
It automates what should be automated:
- Running Terraform plans consistently
- Maintaining state in a reliable environment
- Applying changes only after review
- Integrating updates directly into PRs
But it doesn’t automate decisions. It doesn’t override human judgment. It doesn’t remove the need for thoughtful review. Instead, it supports engineers by handling the tedious, repetitive, error-prone parts of Terraform work so they can focus on understanding the impact of their changes.
This balance is one of Atlantis’s most appreciated traits. It doesn’t try to be an all-powerful orchestrator. It aims to be a dependable teammate—one who handles the mechanics while leaving strategy in human hands.
¶ A Tool That Blends Into Your Workflow
One of the compelling things about Atlantis is how quietly it integrates into existing development culture. It doesn’t impose new habits. It reinforces the habits that teams should already be following.
Teams use GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket for code review? Atlantis fits right in.
Teams collaborate through pull requests? Atlantis simply listens.
Teams want visibility in every change? Atlantis posts it directly to the conversation.
Teams need a consistent pipeline for applying infrastructure? Atlantis handles it.
Instead of adding another interface to check or another window to open, Atlantis brings the entire lifecycle of infrastructure updates into a single place: the pull request. Everything lives together: the proposed change, the plan, the discussion, the review, and the final apply. This consolidation of context is one of the reasons people who adopt Atlantis rarely go back to manual workflows.
¶ A DevOps Tool That Encourages Good Behavior
Tools shape culture. When a system makes good practices effortless, teams naturally follow them. Atlantis encourages:
- Code reviews
- Version control discipline
- Visibility into changes
- Consistency in Terraform execution
- Proper approval workflows
- Reduction of manual steps
- Documentation of change history
What was once a fragile process handled on individual laptops becomes an orderly sequence that happens the same way every time. This consistency reduces risk, improves confidence, and helps teams scale without the anxiety that often accompanies large infrastructure projects.
With Atlantis, knowledge becomes shared. Changes become predictable. Mistakes become less frequent. And the overall posture of the DevOps team shifts from reactive firefighting to proactive, deliberate engineering.
¶ Who Benefits From Learning Atlantis
This course is for anyone who touches infrastructure, whether directly or indirectly. If you work in cloud engineering, DevOps, SRE, platform engineering, or even development teams that handle their own infrastructure, understanding Atlantis will elevate your workflow.
It’s especially valuable for:
- Teams that use Terraform extensively
- Organizations with many contributors making infra changes
- Companies seeking compliance or auditability
- Platform engineering teams supporting multiple services
- DevOps engineers building scalable workflows
- Teams that want automation without complexity
- Environments where safety and visibility matter
Even if you're just learning Terraform, understanding Atlantis early helps you build good habits from the beginning. And if you're already deeply familiar with infrastructure-as-code, Atlantis provides a framework that complements your expertise and amplifies your impact.
¶ A Journey Into Calm, Predictable Infrastructure
Learning Atlantis is ultimately a journey into predictability. It's a step toward infrastructure that behaves the same way every time. It’s an exploration of how automation and collaboration can coexist gracefully. And most importantly, it’s a reflection of the kind of engineering culture that modern teams aspire to—one built on trust, transparency, and shared responsibility.
In the chapters ahead, you’ll explore:
- How Atlantis works under the hood
- How it listens to pull requests
- How it executes Terraform safely
- How to configure multiple workspaces and environments
- How to integrate it with CI/CD
- How to design approval workflows
- How to scale it across organizations
- How to troubleshoot and optimize it
Each article will deepen your understanding, broaden your perspective, and help you build a Terraform workflow that is as elegant as it is dependable.
For now, this introduction marks the beginning of that journey. Atlantis may appear modest at first glance—a small tool built around Terraform automation—but its impact on workflow, culture, and stability is profound. Once you experience its style of collaboration and control, it’s hard to imagine going back to local Terraform commands scattered across individual laptops.
Welcome to the world of Atlantis—where DevOps becomes calmer, infrastructure becomes clearer, and automation becomes something that supports you, not something that replaces you.
¶ Atlantis
¶ Beginner
1. Introduction to Atlantis: What is It and Why Should You Care?
2. The Role of Atlantis in Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
3. Understanding Terraform and Atlantis Integration
4. Setting Up Atlantis: A Step-by-Step Guide
5. Creating Your First Atlantis Workspace
6. Basic Workflow: How Atlantis Automates Terraform Plans
7. Understanding Atlantis Workflow: Plan, Apply, and Comment
8. Setting Up Version Control with Atlantis and GitHub/GitLab
9. Terraform State Management in Atlantis
10. Understanding Atlantis' GitHub/GitLab Integration
11. Installing Atlantis on Docker: A Simple Approach
12. Exploring Atlantis UI: Navigating Through Terraform Projects
13. Working with Multiple Workspaces in Atlantis
14. Basic Terraform Plan and Apply Commands in Atlantis
15. The Role of Atlantis in CI/CD Pipelines
16. Configuring Atlantis with AWS as Your Cloud Provider
17. Security in Atlantis: Setting Up Permissions and Roles
18. Using Atlantis for Team Collaboration in Infrastructure Management
19. Introduction to Pull Requests and Atlantis Workflow
20. Monitoring and Logging in Atlantis for Beginners
¶ Intermediate
21. Advanced Terraform Workflows with Atlantis
22. Handling Multiple Terraform Modules with Atlantis
23. Setting Up Terraform Backends in Atlantis for State Storage
24. Managing Multiple Environments (Dev, Prod) with Atlantis
25. Managing Terraform Variables and Secrets with Atlantis
26. Integrating Atlantis with Terraform Cloud for Enterprise Use
27. Automating Atlantis Deployments with Webhooks
28. Customizing the Atlantis Workflow: Plan and Apply Strategies
29. Best Practices for Git Workflow with Atlantis
30. Scaling Atlantis for Large Teams and Projects
31. Managing Terraform Providers with Atlantis
32. Using Atlantis to Enforce Code Review Policies
33. Configuring Atlantis for High Availability and Reliability
34. Working with Secrets and Sensitive Data in Atlantis
35. Integrating Atlantis with CI/CD Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI
36. Multi-Tenant Infrastructure Management with Atlantis
37. Advanced Permissions and Access Control in Atlantis
38. Integrating Atlantis with Slack for Notifications
39. Using Atlantis with Azure and Google Cloud Platform
40. Automating Infrastructure Testing with Atlantis
41. Using Atlantis for Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Management
42. Managing Dependency Graphs in Terraform with Atlantis
43. Error Handling and Debugging Terraform Runs in Atlantis
44. Enforcing Best Practices in Code Review with Atlantis
45. Upgrading Atlantis: Best Practices for Smooth Transitions
46. Configuring Automated Rollbacks and Error Recovery
47. Configuring Atlantis to Support Modular Terraform Projects
48. State Locking in Atlantis: A Detailed Guide
49. Terraform State Management Best Practices in Atlantis
50. Best Practices for Using Atlantis in Large-Scale Terraform Projects
¶ Advanced
51. Advanced Terraform Workflows: Customizing Plan and Apply Triggers
52. Automating Atlantis Scaling and Infrastructure Management
53. Using Atlantis for Complex Multi-Cloud Terraform Deployments
54. Customizing Atlantis' Configuration for Your Organization’s Needs
55. Building Secure and Scalable Infrastructure Pipelines with Atlantis
56. Terraform Module Registry Integration with Atlantis
57. Integrating Atlantis with Service Meshes for Advanced Networking
58. Implementing Terraform Validation Rules and Policies in Atlantis
59. Implementing and Managing Secret Management in Atlantis
60. Troubleshooting Advanced Atlantis and Terraform Errors
61. Disaster Recovery Planning with Atlantis and Terraform
62. Using Atlantis for CI/CD Pipelines with Infrastructure as Code
63. Creating Custom Atlantis Webhooks for Advanced Use Cases
64. Performance Optimization for Large-Scale Atlantis Deployments
65. Integrating Atlantis with Third-Party Tools for Advanced Monitoring
66. Automating Atlas Cluster Management and High Availability
67. Building Custom Atlantis Plugins for Extended Functionality
68. Enabling Multi-Region Deployments with Atlantis and Terraform
69. Implementing Continuous Compliance and Security with Atlantis
70. Building a Terraform Module Library for Teams in Atlantis
71. Integrating Atlantis with Service Catalogs for Efficient Infrastructure Provisioning
72. Customizing User Permissions and Roles for Large Teams in Atlantis
73. Managing Complex Cloud Network Topologies with Atlantis and Terraform
74. Advanced Locking and Coordination in Atlantis for Multi-Tenant Systems
75. CI/CD Pipeline Optimization Using Atlantis for Multi-Step Workflows
76. Running and Scaling Atlantis in Kubernetes Environments
77. Building a Secure CI/CD Pipeline Using Atlantis and HashiCorp Vault
78. Integrating Atlantis with Kubernetes for Kubernetes Cluster Management
79. Implementing Terraform Plan and Apply Policy Gates in Atlantis
80. Using Atlantis with Docker and Containers for DevOps Workflows
81. Automating Infrastructure Compliance and Audit Trails in Atlantis
82. Deep Dive into Atlantis’ Internals: Understanding Its Core Architecture
83. Optimizing State Management in Atlantis for Global Teams
84. Integrating Atlantis with Legacy Systems and On-Premise Infrastructure
85. Advanced Workflow Automation with Atlantis and GitOps Practices
86. Containerizing Atlantis for Cloud-Native Infrastructure Management
87. Using Atlantis with Serverless Applications and Terraform
88. Integrating Atlantis with AIOps Tools for Intelligent Automation
89. Managing Terraform Workspaces and States Across Multiple Repositories
90. Securing Terraform State with Atlantis: Best Practices
91. Building End-to-End Continuous Delivery Pipelines with Atlantis and Terraform
92. Enabling GitOps with Atlantis and Terraform for GitOps Workflows
93. Handling Large-Scale Infrastructure with Terraform and Atlantis
94. Automating Patch Management and Infrastructure Updates with Atlantis
95. Integration of Atlantis with Advanced Monitoring and Alerting Systems
96. Integrating Atlantis with Application Performance Management (APM) Tools
97. Creating Custom Policies and Governance for Atlantis Workflows
98. Advanced Disaster Recovery and Failover Strategies in Atlantis
99. Contributing to Atlantis: How to Contribute to Open Source Development
100. The Future of Infrastructure Automation with Atlantis: Trends and Innovations