Your Terraform Was a Diagram All Along: CloudForge for VS Code

Every Terraform repository is secretly a diagram. The resources, the references between them, the way a subnet belongs to a network and an app service leans on a database — the architecture is all in there, encoded in HCL. You just can't see it while you work.

That's the gap the CloudForge — Terraform Visual Forge extension closes. Open a .tf file or folder in VS Code and it renders as a live architecture diagram on the Forge Canvas — the same drag-and-drop designer as cloudforge.cloud, docked right next to your code. Edit the diagram, and generate clean Terraform back. Azure, AWS, and GCP.

And here's the part people double-check: it's free, with no resource limits. Not a 20-resource teaser — the full canvas, any forge size, on any plan.

The round trip is the point

Architecture diagrams die because they live apart from the code. Someone exports a picture, the infrastructure moves on, and three sprints later the diagram is a historical document.

The extension makes the diagram a view of the code instead of a copy of it:

• Import — point it at your Terraform files or a whole folder; the canvas builds itself, resource identities and relationships included.

• Reshape — drag resources, draw connections, drop in new services from the palette, configure SKUs.

• Generate — produce production-ready Terraform from the canvas, review the diff, apply.

Your diagram can't go stale, because it isn't a separate artifact anymore.

Start from what's actually running

Live Cloud Import pulls your existing Azure or AWS estate straight onto the canvas. Pick one of your cloud connections, watch discovery run with live progress, and get a rendered architecture with proper resource identities — around 165 mapped resource types — plus the relationships discovery found between them. Replace the current forge or append to it. (GCP discovery is on the way.)

It's the fastest honest answer to "what do we actually have deployed?" — and once it's on the canvas, it's editable, reviewable, and exportable like anything else.

Or start from a Mold

The Mold Library ships 90 curated architecture templates — 30 each for Azure, AWS, and GCP — across web apps, microservices, serverless, data & analytics, networking, security, AI/ML, and DevOps. Each Mold comes with the layout, the reasoning ("why this shape"), and a one-click forge onto your canvas. The catalog updates live from cloudforge.cloud, so new Molds appear without waiting for an extension release.

Bring the AI you already pay for

Most AI-powered extensions want another API key. This one auto-detects what you already have:

• GitHub Copilot — the @cloudforge chat participant works in Copilot Chat.

• Claude Code CLI — uses your existing Anthropic subscription.

• Codex CLI — uses your existing OpenAI subscription.

Whichever engine it finds powers the AI features (you can override the choice in settings). The Assay — a policy, security, and cost review of your architecture — is free for everyone, as is plan analysis. Chatting with Vani, your Forgemaster, on the canvas is the supporter perk reserved for paid CloudForge plans.

Deploy without leaving the editor

@cloudforge /apply and /destroy drive Terraform in your integrated terminal, and the Generate modal's Apply and Undo buttons do the same with no AI involved at all. Plan analysis explains what's about to change before anything touches your cloud. Both stay free.

Built for teams, too

The Foundry tab brings your organisation's shared forges into VS Code, and The Rack keeps your recent work one click away — the same views as the web app, without the tab switch.

Free and unlimited is deliberate. We want the canvas in your daily loop; CloudForge earns its keep on the collaboration, governance, and AI features teams grow into — not by capping your diagram.

Get it

Install CloudForge — Terraform Visual Forge from the VS Code Marketplace, open a Terraform file, and sign in with your CloudForge account (free accounts work). Thirty seconds later you're looking at your infrastructure instead of squinting at it.

If it earns a place in your toolbar, a Marketplace rating helps other engineers find it — and tell us what you'd like forged next.