Ansible vs Terraform: Why Both Tools Belong in Your IaC Pipeline

Infrastructure as Code workflows typically require two distinct phases: provisioning resources and configuring them, which are best handled by separate tools. Terraform and its open-source fork OpenTofu handle provisioning by communicating with cloud APIs to create virtual machines, networks, and databases. Ansible takes over after provisioning, connecting to existing machines via SSH without requiring an agent to install packages, manage users, and apply configurations. A common pipeline pattern has Terraform create a VM and output its IP address, which Ansible then uses to connect and configure the software environment inside it. Key Ansible concepts include inventories for listing managed machines, playbooks for defining ordered tasks, reusable roles, and idempotent execution that ensures repeated runs produce consistent results without side effects.