TA-003 practice examsIn development
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Authoring and Operations Professional
Terraform beyond the associate level: state as the record with locking and encryption rather than a cache, module interfaces and versioning, the for_each against count decision that decides whether a removal recreates everything, and lifecycle arguments; then applying a saved plan so the approved change is the applied one, splitting configuration by blast radius, policy as code enforced in the pipeline, state holding secrets in plain text, and diagnosing drift and address changes without destroying anything.
What you get
Papers are cut from the bank and weighted like the real exam, and no question appears in two of them. Every wrong answer comes back on later days until you have it right.
What the exam covers
| State, modules and configuration at scale | Not published |
| Workflow, governance, security and troubleshooting | Not published |
Two sample questions
1. Where do secrets end up when a resource stores them?
- Encrypted inside the lock file
- Only in the provider's own store
- In the state file in plain text — correct
- Never anywhere Terraform can see
Why: This is why the state itself must be protected and encrypted.
2. What does state map config to?
- Real resources — correct
- The lock file
- The backend
- The module registry
Why: State maps configuration resources to the real-world objects they manage.
The real TA-003 exam
| Length | 180 minutes |
|---|---|
| Questions | A mix of multiple choice and hands-on lab tasks performed against real infrastructure. |
| Pass mark | Scaled score; HashiCorp does not publish the percentage |
| Price | Purchased per attempt through the HashiCorp certification programme |
| Recommended before you sit it | The Terraform Associate credential and substantial production experience are assumed. |
| Valid for | 2 years |
Exam facts as published by HashiCorp; always check the vendor’s page before you book.
Study TA-003 with Chiron
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