you can fix them in main.tf and it will not ask

@matifali can you clarify what you mean by "fix them". I was trying combinations and could not get it to not ask / throw an error. I'm sure it's a simple fix and I'm just not getting it. Thanks!

We're reworking some of our parameter behavior in #4311 and plan on slowly deprecating the prompts for Terrraform variables.

In the meantime, you can avoid user prompts by setting sensitive = true and default = "value". I believe the TF_VAR_ variables will be respected as long as they are set before the Coder server is running.

@bpmct is that in a particular version?

If I do as you suggest it detects a default value as well as the environment variable...So far so good:

✔ Queued [809ms]
✔ Setting up [61ms]
✔ Adding README.md... [63ms]
✔ Parsing template parameters [140ms]
⧗  Detecting persistent resources 
  terraform environment variable: TF_VAR_namespace=<value redacted>
  terraform environment variable: TF_VAR_venture=<value redacted>
  Terraform 1.3.0
  data.coder_workspace.me: Refreshing...
  data.coder_workspace.me: Refresh complete after 0s [id=7995ccd3-0294-40e2-b446-02659c94f692]
  coder_agent.main: Plan to create

But when I start a workspace it's not honouring the environment variable. Note how it's just used value instead of my environment variable.

terraform environment variable: TF_VAR_namespace=<value redacted>
terraform environment variable: TF_VAR_venture=<value redacted>
Initializing the backend...
Initializing provider plugins...
...
...
Error: serviceaccounts is forbidden: User "system:serviceaccount:REDACTED:coder" cannot create resource "serviceaccounts" in API group "" in the namespace "value"
Error: configmaps is forbidden: User "system:serviceaccount:REDACTED:coder" cannot create resource "configmaps" in API group "" in the namespace "value"

@matifali can you clarify what you mean by "fix them". I was trying combinations and could not get it to not ask / throw an error. I'm sure it's a simple fix and I'm just not getting it. Thanks!

I think I misunderstood your question and I thought it is related to some terraform variables so I said fix/initialize them in main.tf

Ah gotcha. I guess the default value is consumed instead of the TF_VAR_ value.

@kylecarbs any idea if we could work around this before the new parameter stuff is in and variables are only consumable via Terraform?

The only thing I can think of is using an external data source instead of using variables: https://support.hashicorp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4547786359571-Reading-and-using-environment-variables-in-Terraform-runs

Thanks @bpmct I will look at a workaround like that for the moment.

By the way, the proposed UI inputs look great!

@bpmct this worked a charm and is an acceptable workaround for us for now:

data "external" "env" {
  program = ["sh", "-c",
    <<-EOF
    cat <<-EOT
    {
    "venture": "$TF_VAR_venture",
    "namespace": "$TF_VAR_namespace"
    }
    EOT
EOF
  ]
}

locals {
  namespace      = data.external.env.result.namespace
  venture        = data.external.env.result.venture
}

This issue is becoming stale. In order to keep the tracker readable and actionable, I'm going close to this issue in 7 days if there isn't more activity.

We're still doing this hack (if you'd call it that).

I think it's fine to do this! Once we have the new parameter system, this won't be a thing anyways!

Cool beans. I guess OK to close off then.