Consider Exposing Framework Provider Metadata

[SBGoods]

Background

The terraform providers schema -json command allows Terraform to output provider-based information in machine-readable JSON format. Terraform ecosystem tooling such as terraform-plugin-docs and the Terraform Language Server, rely on this specification to operate. The command currently only exposes information surfaced from the Terraform Plugin Protocol's GetProviderSchema RPC and therefore has a tight dependency on Terraform core.

Since the provider schema information and other metadata are sourced from the providers themselves with no dependency on Terraform core, we can consider exposing a provider metadata function or RPC directly in the framework which provider developers can use to opt-in to outputting/exposing additional provider metadata.

Use-cases

• Outputting framework specific types instead of go-cty types: Allow outputting terraform-plugin-framework types for documentation and LSP #182
• Indicate whether or not a resource supports importing: Resource Import Documentation Handling #160

terraform-plugin-docs:

• Lack of SchemaDescriptionBuilder equivalent (from sdkv2) #625 (comment)
• Allow setting subcategory from code terraform-plugin-docs#156 (comment)
• Improve documentation of object type for provider-defined functions terraform-plugin-docs#333
• bug: TypeSet/TypeList Elements are not rendered in data-sources terraform-plugin-docs#64

[SBGoods]

Another potential use case, exposing metadata about which attributes have a RequiresReplace plan modifier set: https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/expose-requiresreplace-forcenew-attributes-in-provider-schema/68870

[drewmullen]

We would also love information on default values and potentially validations:

• Add information about update-ability, default value, & validation terraform-plugin-docs#398
• modify terraform providers schema -json to include fields for default, plan_modifiers, and validators terraform#35646