What is a Terraform Provider?

A Terraform Provider is a plugin that enables Terraform to interact with a specific infrastructure platform or service. Each provider defines resource types and data sources for that platform. Configure providers in a required_providers block: terraform { required_providers { aws = { source = "hashicorp/aws"; version = "~> 5.0" } } }. Then configure credentials: provider "aws" { region = "us-east-1" }. Popular providers: AWS, Azure (azurerm), Google Cloud (google), Kubernetes, Helm, GitHub, Datadog. Providers are distributed via the Terraform Registry (registry.terraform.io). The provider is downloaded during terraform init. Pin provider versions to avoid unexpected upgrades breaking your infrastructure.