Practice the English used when reviewing and communicating infrastructure-as-code changes in pull requests: plan output review, safety checks, and change communication.
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What should a PR description for a Terraform change always include?
IaC PR descriptions need: what changes (business context), how it changes (plan summary), and why. Reviewers cannot approve infrastructure changes without knowing the scope of impact — and the plan is the evidence.
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Which comment is the most useful when reviewing an IaC pull request?
IaC code review must flag high-risk changes: resource destruction, forced replacements, and downtime. A reviewer who approves without noting a database replacement has missed their responsibility.
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What does 'plan before merge' policy mean in an IaC workflow?
Plan-before-merge ensures reviewers see what will actually happen, not just what the code looks like. CI systems can automate this: running 'terraform plan' on every PR and posting the output as a comment.
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How would you communicate a high-risk IaC change to the team before merging?
High-risk IaC changes should be announced proactively: what is changing, when, expected impact, and who is monitoring. This allows affected team members to prepare and provides a clear owner if issues arise.
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What is the purpose of 'module version pinning' in IaC pull requests?
Unpinned modules (or 'latest') can silently change behavior when the module is updated. Version pinning ensures the same module version is used every time, making deployments reproducible and reviews meaningful.
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How would you request a review for an IaC change that has a complex security implication?
Good review requests are specific: name the exact change, the specific concern, and what input is needed. Generic 'security review needed' comments lead to shallow or misdirected reviews.
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What does 'blast radius' mean when discussing an IaC change in a PR?
Blast radius is a risk assessment term: 'What is the blast radius of this change?' means 'What breaks if this goes wrong?' Smaller blast radius = safer change. Large blast radius changes need more review, staged rollout, or change window scheduling.
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What is 'drift remediation' in an IaC context and how is it communicated in a PR?
Drift remediation PRs are special: they fix the gap between desired state (code) and actual state (real infrastructure). The plan output may show surprising changes — the reviewer needs context to understand why those resources are being 'changed' (they are actually being reconciled).