Default Pipelines

Learn how to use and auto-create Harness IaCM default pipelines to run Plan, Provision, Detect Drift, and Destroy operations directly from any workspace.

IaCM Default Pipelines offer a streamlined approach to provisioning, destroying, and managing infrastructure workspaces by allowing you to run your pre-configured pipelines directly from any workspace. These pipelines can be easily created and set as defaults at the project level, providing quick and consistent access across all workspaces. This functionality ensures a seamless experience and maintains uniformity throughout your infrastructure management.

In addition, as some workspaces may require specialized pipelines, you can overwrite the defaults at the workspace level. This will not disrupt any other workspace using the project level defaults.

DANGER ZONE

A pipeline containing the destroy command will remove all saved infrastructure managed by your Harness workspace.

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Before you begin

• IaCM permissions: View and Create/Edit permissions for IaCM Pipelines, and Edit permissions for Project Settings to configure IaCM Defaults. Go to RBAC in Harness to configure roles.

• Existing pipelines: Required only if you want to manually assign default pipelines. If you enable auto-creation during workspace setup, Harness generates the pipelines for you. Go to Pipeline Operations to add operational features to your pipelines before assigning them as defaults.

Harness IaCM: Default Pipelines

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Auto-creating default pipelines

Limited GA

Auto-creating default pipelines is available in Limited GA. Contact Harness Support to enable it for your account.

When creating a workspace, you can enable the Set up auto-generated default pipelines toggle on the Provisioner step to have Harness automatically create default pipelines for all supported operations. Harness creates the pipelines asynchronously after workspace creation and immediately associates them with the workspace, so the Plan, Provision, and Check for Drift actions are available without any manual pipeline setup.

If project-level default pipelines already exist for the selected provisioner, Harness reuses them instead of creating duplicates. If the toggle is not shown during workspace creation, at least one project-level default already exists for that provisioner.

Generated pipelines by provisioner

Provisioner	Operation	Steps
Terraform / OpenTofu / Terragrunt	Plan	Init → Plan
Terraform / OpenTofu / Terragrunt	Drift	Init → Plan → Detect Drift
Terraform / OpenTofu / Terragrunt	Apply (Provision)	Init → Plan → Approval → Apply
Terraform / OpenTofu / Terragrunt	Destroy	Init → Plan (Destroy) → Approval → Destroy
AWS CDK	Synth	Bootstrap → Synth
AWS CDK	Diff	Bootstrap → Synth → Diff
AWS CDK	Drift	Bootstrap → Synth → Detect Drift
AWS CDK	Deploy	Bootstrap → Synth → Diff → Approval → Deploy
AWS CDK	Destroy	Bootstrap → Synth → Diff → Approval → Destroy

Auto-generated pipelines follow the naming convention iacm_auto_generated_<provisioner>_<operation>_pipeline, for example iacm_auto_generated_terraform_plan_pipeline and iacm_auto_generated_cdk_deploy_pipeline. You can override any auto-generated default with a custom pipeline from Project Settings → IaCM Settings → Default Pipelines or from the Configuration tab of an individual workspace.

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Configure and run default pipelines

Interactive Guide

Harness IaCM: Default Pipelines

Step-by-Step

Set your project-level default pipelines

1. In your IaCM module, select Project settings, then select IaCM Defaults.

2. Select the appropriate pipelines for your default categories and frameworks (OpenTofu / Terraform):

   • Plan: Pipeline for running the plan only.

   • Provision: Pipeline for initializing, planning, approving, and applying changes.

   • Detect Drift: Pipeline for detecting drift between your configuration and provider state.

   • Destroy: Pipeline for initializing, planning, approving, and destroying infrastructure.

Review your default pipelines in your workspace

1. Select Workspaces, then select one of your workspaces to run your default pipelines.

2. Select the Configuration tab and scroll down to Default pipelines to inspect or override your default pipelines at the selected workspace-level (this will not affect your project level settings).

Run your default pipelines in your workspace

1. While in your workspace, run your default pipelines against it with the Plan, Provision and Check for Drift buttons.

EXECUTE THE DESTROY PIPELINE

To prevent accidental execution, the Destroy pipeline is in your workspace's Configuration tab, under Danger Zone.

To run it, select Destroy workspace.

Review previously run pipelines by selecting your workspace and reviewing the Execution History tab.

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Next steps

You have configured default pipelines at the project level and can now run Plan, Provision, and Detect Drift operations directly from any workspace.

• Go to Pipeline Operations to add approval gates, drift detection, PR automation, and queue steps to your default pipelines.

• Go to Remove and import resources to safely remove infrastructure resources from state without destroying them.

• Go to Custom images to use your own Terraform or OpenTofu plugin images in your IaCM pipeline stages.