Pulumi — Infrastructure as Code in Any Programming Language

What it is

Pulumi is an infrastructure as code (IaC) platform that lets you define and manage cloud resources using general-purpose programming languages. Unlike Terraform which uses HCL (a domain-specific language), Pulumi supports TypeScript, Python, Go, C#, Java, and YAML. This means you can use loops, conditionals, functions, classes, and existing package ecosystems to manage infrastructure.

Platform engineers, DevOps teams, and developers who prefer writing infrastructure in the same language as their application code use Pulumi as their IaC tool. It supports AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, and 100+ cloud providers.

How it saves time or tokens

HCL requires learning a separate syntax with limited programming constructs. Pulumi lets you use familiar language features -- loops for creating multiple resources, functions for reusable components, type checking for catching errors before deployment, and existing package managers (npm, pip, go modules) for sharing infrastructure modules. IDE support (autocomplete, type checking, inline docs) works out of the box because you are writing in a real language.

How to use

1. Install Pulumi:

brew install pulumi  # macOS
curl -fsSL https://get.pulumi.com | sh

1. Create a new project:

pulumi new aws-typescript  # or aws-python, azure-go, etc.

1. Define infrastructure in code:

import * as aws from '@pulumi/aws';

const bucket = new aws.s3.Bucket('my-bucket', {
  website: { indexDocument: 'index.html' },
});

export const bucketUrl = bucket.websiteEndpoint;

1. Deploy:

pulumi up  # preview and deploy changes

Example

# Python example: create a VPC with subnets
import pulumi
import pulumi_aws as aws

vpc = aws.ec2.Vpc('main-vpc', cidr_block='10.0.0.0/16')

# Use a loop to create subnets across availability zones
azs = ['us-east-1a', 'us-east-1b', 'us-east-1c']
subnets = []
for i, az in enumerate(azs):
    subnet = aws.ec2.Subnet(f'subnet-{az}',
        vpc_id=vpc.id,
        cidr_block=f'10.0.{i}.0/24',
        availability_zone=az,
    )
    subnets.append(subnet)

pulumi.export('vpc_id', vpc.id)
pulumi.export('subnet_ids', [s.id for s in subnets])

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Common pitfalls

• Pulumi state must be stored somewhere (Pulumi Cloud, S3, local file). Losing state means Pulumi cannot track existing resources. Configure a durable backend before creating production infrastructure.
• Resource naming in Pulumi is logical, not physical. Pulumi appends random suffixes to avoid naming conflicts. Use the physical name property if you need a specific resource name.
• Importing existing resources into Pulumi state requires the pulumi import command. Without importing, Pulumi creates duplicate resources instead of managing existing ones.