Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Terraform, AWS CLI, and Your AWS Environment

If you're just getting started with infrastructure as code, the first few hours can feel like you're assembling furniture without the instruction manual. You know the end goal — a working Terraform setup connected to AWS — but the path there involves a surprising number of small decisions that can trip you up if you're not careful. This post walks through exactly what I did to get my environment up and running: AWS account setup, IAM configuration, AWS CLI installation, and finally connecting Terraform to AWS. Whether you're brand new to this or you've done bits of it before but never cleanly all at once, I'll share what I learned along the way — including the stuff I wish someone had told me upfront. What We're Setting Up Before we dive in, here's the full picture of what we're building across these three labs: Lab 1: Set up your AWS account with proper IAM and billing configuration Lab 2: Install and configure the AWS CLI Lab 3: Install Terraform and connect it to AWS Let's go step b