By Sebastian Stadil —

Why You Should Use Dependabot with Terraform and OpenTofu

Infrastructure-as-code has transformed how organizations deploy cloud resources, but keeping dependencies updated remains a persistent challenge. Dependabot offers a powerful solution for Terraform and OpenTofu repositories that delivers significant benefits.

Key Benefits

Security Improvements

  • Reduces security vulnerabilities by 70-80% through automated detection and remediation
  • Creates pull requests that upgrade vulnerable dependencies to the minimum secure version
  • Detects issues across the entire dependency graph, not just direct dependencies
  • Helps prevent the 83% of infrastructure security breaches that stem from misconfigurations

Time and Efficiency Gains

  • Saves development teams 5-8 hours per month previously spent on manual dependency management
  • Eliminates the need for custom scripts to track module and provider updates
  • Automatically generates detailed pull requests with release notes and change logs
  • Enables higher deployment velocity while maintaining security standards

Compliance and Cost Benefits

  • Provides comprehensive audit trails essential for regulatory compliance
  • Reduces security incident response costs by 30-40% by preventing vulnerabilities
  • Enables standardization through organization-wide security policies
  • Minimizes configuration drift across infrastructure repositories

Terraform vs OpenTofu Considerations

  • Terraform is officially supported by Dependabot under the "terraform" package ecosystem
  • OpenTofu can use the same "terraform" package ecosystem configuration through v1.7
  • OpenTofu v1.8+ has compatibility issues with Dependabot due to early variable evaluation

Basic Implementation

Setting up Dependabot requires creating a .github/dependabot.yml file in your repository:

version: 2
updates:
  - package-ecosystem: "terraform"  # Works for both Terraform and OpenTofu
    directory: "/"                  # Location of .tf files
    schedule:
      interval: "weekly"

Organizations implementing Dependabot with their infrastructure code consistently report improved security postures, streamlined workflows, and reduced operational costs. The automation shifts infrastructure teams from maintenance to innovation while creating a more secure foundation for cloud deployments.