Outputs

What are outputs?

Outputs print useful resource information after terraform apply — IDs, public IPs, DNS names, and anything else you want to share with other stacks or teammates.

Output syntax

output "instance_id" {
  value = aws_instance.example.id
}
 
output "public_ip" {
  value = aws_instance.example.public_ip
}
 
output "bucket_name" {
  value = aws_s3_bucket.demo.bucket
}

outputs.tf example

output "instance_id" {
  description = "EC2 instance ID"
  value       = aws_instance.ec2_instance.id
}
 
output "public_ip" {
  description = "EC2 public IP"
  value       = aws_instance.ec2_instance.public_ip
}
 
output "bucket_name" {
  description = "S3 bucket name"
  value       = aws_s3_bucket.s3_bucket.bucket
}

After apply:

Apply complete!

Outputs:

bucket_name = "test-bucket-2335"
instance_id = "i-0123456789abcdef0"
public_ip   = "13.233.xxx.xxx"

Viewing outputs later

terraform output
terraform output public_ip

Typical project structure

terraform-project/
├── main.tf
├── provider.tf
├── variables.tf
├── terraform.tfvars
├── outputs.tf
├── versions.tf
└── terraform.tfstate

For Day 2, focus on:

variables.tf       → input variables
terraform.tfvars   → variable values
outputs.tf         → output values