How to fix Error: Provider configuration not present in Terraform

Execute terraform init or terraform init -reconfigure in your working directory. This command sets up the working directory, downloads necessary providers, and resolves dependencies.

terraform init -reconfigure

The -reconfigure flag is especially useful if you've recently changed providers or modified your state.

Ensure your provider block is defined at the root level of your Terraform configuration, not inside child modules. Provider definitions should be at the root.

# ./main.tf
terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "5.0.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

module "example" {
  source = "./modules/example"
}

If your configuration doesn't have a required_providers block, add it to declare the providers your configuration depends on. This block tells Terraform where to fetch the provider from.

terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 5.0"
    }
  }
}

If you're using provider aliases to use multiple configurations of the same provider, ensure they are correctly referenced. Define the alias in the provider block and reference it in resource blocks.

provider "aws" {
  alias  = "primary"
  region = "us-east-1"
}

provider "aws" {
  alias  = "secondary"
  region = "us-west-2"
}

resource "aws_instance" "primary" {
  provider = aws.primary
  # configuration
}

If the state file references a provider that's no longer in your configuration, use terraform state replace-provider to update it. Replace the provider paths with your old and new provider sources.

terraform state replace-provider 'registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws' 'registry.terraform.io/custom/aws'

If you removed a provider configuration while resources created by that provider still exist in state, temporarily re-add the provider block to destroy those resources properly.

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

Then run terraform destroy before removing the provider block again.

After making corrections, validate your configuration to catch any remaining issues before applying.

terraform validate
terraform plan

These commands help verify that your provider configuration is correct and all resources can be properly referenced.