The Path to Production Is Dark and Full of Terrors : A Hero’s Journey Through Terraform, DX, and Infra Lifecycle

Infrastructure as Code was our first step out the door, but it wasn’t the destination. Like Bilbo Baggins leaving the Shire, many teams began this journey with a few modules and good intentions… only to find the real challenges come much later: scaling infrastructure, managing complexity across teams, enforcing compliance, and onboarding new engineers effectively.
In this session, we'll explore the real Infrastructure Lifecycle using the Hero’s Journey as our guide. From the first commit to the last plan, we'll walk through how version control integrations, policy-as-code, and self-service provisioning form the backbone of a mature, developer-friendly infrastructure path.
This talk isn't about aspirational theory or product pitches. It’s a grounded, story-led exploration of:
The SRE's "call to adventure" and where platform teams get stuck.
How policy-as-code can act as a mentor, not a blocker.
What it means to return with the "elixir" of maturity: trust, visibility, and speed.
Enabling no-code provisioning and organizing complex infrastructure with workspaces.
We'll walk through a visual walkthrough of a clean evolution from confusion to clarity, with version control triggers and clear policy guidance.
Whether you're stepping onto the path or guiding others through it, this talk will leave you with a narrative structure, technical insight, and a better map for the road ahead.

Transcript

1. ©2025 HASHICORP The Path to Production Is Dark and Full of Terrors: A Heroʼs Journey Through Terraform, DevEx, and the Infra Lifecycle
2. ©2025 HASHICORP Sr. Tech Product Marketing Manager HashiCorp He/Him DuvalKingJacob Jacob Plicque
3. ©2025 HASHICORP 3
4. ©2025 HASHICORP 4 4 • Earlier that night 1003 PM. March 2015. Overnight shift. • Patch night. 10k Servers and little old me. • I was 28. I didnʼt know Terraform existed…Just knew things had to keep running. • We had a DevOps Team but, this wasnʼt Devops was it? It was surviving. What Normal looked Like 10 years ago, and a lot less gray hair..
5. ©2025 HASHICORP 5 Weʼve been talking about Infra as Code for over a Decade • IaC was our first step out the door. Like Bilbo leaving the Shire. • But a lot of teams never got past that first hill. • They make a module or two, then goright back to the Shire.. • Not out of Laziness, out of Exhaustion, Fear, Unclear ROI • They start, but they never finish it.
6. ©2025 HASHICORP 6 Why Didnʼt We Finish the Journey? It wasnʼt the Code. It was everything we built around it. • Lack of Support • Unclear ROI • No safety to see it through. • Whoʼs supposed to be the Hero here? • Developer Pain = Catalyst.
7. ©2025 HASHICORP 7 7 • “Duct tapeˮ doesnʼt scale. • Trust in the Process? Nah. • Silent Chaos when things failed. Something had to change…
8. ©2025 HASHICORP 8 Table of Contents The Call and Threshold– Stepping Into Structure The Patch – Where the pain began The Mentor – Policy-as-Code that guides The Ordeal – From failure to flow The Reward – Trust, clarity, and speed The Return – Takeaways for your team 2 3 1 4 5 6
9. ©2025 HASHICORP 9 9 STAGE 1 ADOPTING STAGE 2 STANDARDIZING STAGE 3 SCALING CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS Terraform enters the Story! • A shift in gravity. • From duct tape to intent. • Clarity over control. resource "google_compute_instance" "svr" { name = "server" machine_type = "e2-small" zone = "us-central1-a" boot_disk { initialize_params { image = "ubuntu-os-cloud/ubuntu-2204-lts" } } } resource "dnsimple_record" "hello" { domain = "example.com" name = "server" value = google_compute_instance.svr.network_interface.0.network_i p type = "A" }
10. ©2025 HASHICORP 10 10 STAGE 1 ADOPTING STAGE 2 STANDARDIZING STAGE 3 SCALING CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS From Complexity to Clarity • Monolithic IaC Hinders scale and trust • Solution: Separate configs • For clearer boundaries and stronger isolation.
11. ©2025 HASHICORP 11 11 CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS STAGE 1 ADOPTING STAGE 2 STANDARDIZING STAGE 3 SCALING Reusable Patterns with Modules By creating reusable modules, operations teams empower their organization to efficiently provision approved, secured, and standardized infrastructure. • Reusable, templated infrastructure as code • Create interfaces with input and output variables Producer / consumer workflow • Producers create modules and publish to a registry for discovery • Consumers explore the registry to create infrastructure as needed for applications
12. ©2025 HASHICORP 12 12 CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS STAGE 1 ADOPTING STAGE 2 STANDARDIZING STAGE 3 SCALING ©2025 HASHICORP But IaC wasnʼt enough. • IaC solved repeatability. • It didnʼt solve Delivery. • Chaos between “mergeˮ and “prodˮ.
13. ©2025 HASHICORP 13 The Path to Production is Dark and Full of Terrors • Surprise! • Audit trails & Drift • Access Controls & Rollbacks • Organizational politics
14. ©2025 HASHICORP 14 14 • People donʼt adopt tools, they adopt clarity. • Automation without context is just faster chaos. Yay. • Clear paths. Shared Ownership. Trusted guardrails. Clarity beats Control.
15. ©2025 HASHICORP 15 Call to Adventure • A developer needs infra. • The platform team gets the call. • How do we respond?
16. ©2025 HASHICORP 16 16 CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS STAGE 1 ADOPTING STAGE 2 STANDARDIZING STAGE 3 SCALING Meet the Mentor: Policy as code • What if guardrails didnʼt feel like Gates? • Automated reviews • Guidance, not blockers.
17. ©2025 HASHICORP 17 17 STAGE 1 ADOPTING STAGE 2 STANDARDIZING STAGE 3 SCALING CHALLENGE SOLUTION RESULTS VCS Integration: Our Compass to Prod • Automated versioning • Policy checks on Pull Requests • Continuous Feedback
18. ©2025 HASHICORP 18 1 The Ordeal: A Guided Walkthrough • The Push. The Block. • The Path. • From confusion to clarity.
19. ©2025 HASHICORP 19 The Block: Policy as a Guidepost • Policy as a Guidepost, Not a wall • Clear feedback, not cryptic errors • Immediate guidance for the developer PLAN FAILED. Policy checks failed: 1 failing. ------------------------------------------ Policy: "required-tags" Reason: Resource missing mandatory 'team' tag. ------------------------------------------
20. ©2025 HASHICORP 20 YOU SHALL NOT PASS!....until itʼs right.
21. ©2025 HASHICORP 21 The Path Forward: From Friction to Flow • One small fix. • Guided, Not blocked. • Same tool. Better experience. PLAN SUCCESSFUL. Policy checks passed: All OK. --------------------------------- --------- Infrastructure ready for deployment. --------------------------------- ---------
22. ©2025 HASHICORP 22 What the Developer feels now • “I get it nowˮ • “Iʼm not afraid of the platform.ˮ • “That was….weirdly helpful?ˮ • From a small fix to a profound shift.
23. © HASHICORP The full lifecycle Trust, visibility, speed Deployments Stacks (future) Components Network Secrets Compute US EU AP Workspaces Application A Application B Application C Ephemeral workspaces No-code workspaces Developers / Operators Platform team / Security Private registry Modules Providers Platform team Plan Apply Health checks Agent pool Projects Workspace explorer Drift detection Continuous validation No-code upgrades Notifications Integrated testing Day 2 management Image registry Secrets mgmt HCP Terraform External services Security scanning Cost management Compliance Compliance / Security / Finance Run tasks OPA Sentinel Policy 4,000+ providers
24. © HASHICORP 24 24 • Itʼs about creating belief. • Clarity connects strategy to implementation. • The platform as a partner This is the real journey
25. ©2025 HASHICORP 25
26. ©2025 HASHICORP 26 Infra Maturity isnʼt about tools. Its about clarity. Policy as code = Narrative scaffolding, not red tape Developers donʼt need more tools, they need better stories. Terraform works best when the journey is mapped. Takeaways
27. ©2025 HASHICORP Thank you jacob.plicque@hashicorp.com DuvalKingJacob speakerdeck.com/duvalkingjacob linkedin.com/in/fanaticgamer1986