AWS Terraform MCP Server

How to setup AWS's Terraform MCP Server

Overview

• AWS has open-sourced an MCP server specifically for using Terraform on AWS

• It includes things like best practices, security scanning (checkov), documentation, and more

• While AI is capable of writing Terraform, this provides it with more prescriptive and up-to-date guidance

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Installation

Always review the source code for MCP servers to avoid running malicious code or commands.

Pre-Requisites

• The following are required before the server will run

brew install uv terraform checkov
uv python install 3.10

MCP Setup

• First, install the VS Code extension for the MCP server

• Then run the installation command below to add the MCP server to your ~/.claude.json configuration

  • --scope

    • setting to user will enable us to the MCP server anytime otherwise

    • setting to project will only use the MCP server within a project directory e.g., my-project-folder/project-code

claude mcp add --scope user -e FASTMCP_LOG_LEVEL=ERROR -- awslabs-terraform-mcp-server uvx awslabs.terraform-mcp-server@latest

• Alternatively, you can copy/paste this into your ~/.cluade.json file for the same effect but the previous CLI command is recommended to avoid issues

"mcpServers": {
    "awslabs.terraform-mcp-server": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["awslabs.terraform-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "FASTMCP_LOG_LEVEL": "ERROR"
      },
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }

MCP Health Checks

• Check to ensure the MCP server is running

claude mcp list
Checking MCP server health...

awslabs-terraform-mcp-server: uvx awslabs.terraform-mcp-server@latest - ✓ Connected

MCP Configuration

• The GitHub repo for this particular AWS Terraform MCP server can be found here so be sure to review all the code it can run

• Additionally, the MCP code gets cached locally and since we installed this with uv we can find the data in these paths

The * will be unique to your environment

~.cache/uv/*/*/lib/*/site-packages/awslabs/terraform_mcp_server/impl/resources/
~.cache/uv/*/*/lib/*/site-packages/awslabs/terraform_mcp_server/impl/tools/
~.cache/uv/*/*/lib/*/site-packages/awslabs/terraform_mcp_server/impl/models/
~.cache/uv/*/*/lib/*/site-packages/awslabs/terraform_mcp_server/impl/scripts/
~.cache/uv/*/*/lib/*/site-packages/awslabs/terraform_mcp_server/impl/static/

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Resources

• https://awslabs.github.io/mcp/servers/terraform-mcp-server