Multi-Environment Workflows

There are two dominant, genuinely different patterns for running the same infrastructure across multiple environments, and picking the wrong one for your situation causes real pain later. Terraform workspaces (terraform workspace new prod) let one configuration maintain multiple, named, isolated state files without duplicating any .tf files — lightweight, but every environment is forced to share identical configuration structure, varying only through variables. Directory-per-environment duplicates a thin per-environment main.tf that calls shared modules with different inputs — more files, but environments can genuinely diverge in structure when they need to (prod needs a resource dev doesn't, for instance) without fighting the tool.

You'll build the same small setup both ways, feel the tradeoff directly, and end with a clear opinion on which pattern fits which kind of team and infrastructure.