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: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-framework/issues/182
• Indicate whether or not a resource supports importing: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-framework/issues/160

terraform-plugin-docs:

• https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-framework/issues/625#issuecomment-1424690927
• https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-docs/issues/156#issuecomment-1440414771
• https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-docs/issues/333
• https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-docs/issues/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:

• https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-plugin-docs/issues/398
• https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/issues/35646