The first command to run for a new configuration — or after checking out an existing configuration from version control — is terraform init, which initializes various local settings and data that will be used by subsequent commands.

Terraform uses a plugin based architecture to support the numerous infrastructure and service providers available. As of Terraform version 0.10.0, each “Provider” is its own encapsulated binary distributed separately from Terraform itself. The terraform init command will automatically download and install any Provider binary for the providers in use within the configuration, which in this case is just the aws provider.