`terraform providers schema -json` does not expose the `provider_meta` schema

[so0k]

Terraform Version

terraform version
Terraform v1.15.7
on darwin_arm64
+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws v6.53.0

Use Cases

Tooling that generates or validates Terraform configuration programmatically - code generators, language servers, linters, module scaffolding tools - discovers what a provider supports by reading terraform providers schema -json. That's how these tools learn about resources, data sources, ephemeral resources, functions, and the provider's own configuration schema today.

The AWS provider recently added support for terraform { provider_meta "aws" { user_agent = [...] } } (hashicorp/terraform-provider-aws#45464), letting modules tag their own attribution string onto the AWS provider's User-Agent header — used for example by terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-rds (terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-rds#615) to replace a static resource tag with proper request-level attribution.

Tooling that wants to generate a typed, validated provider_meta block for a given provider (the same way it already generates typed bindings for that provider's resources, data sources, and functions) has no schema to generate against — provider_meta is invisible to terraform providers schema -json, even for providers that implement it. This makes provider_meta the one schema-driven Terraform capability that can't be discovered the same way everything else can.

Attempted Solutions

Ran terraform providers schema -json against the AWS provider (6.53.0, which implements provider_meta "aws" { user_agent = [...] }) and inspected the full output:

• The per-provider schema object exposes exactly these top-level keys: provider, resource_schemas, data_source_schemas, ephemeral_resource_schemas, functions, list_resource_schemas, action_schemas, resource_identity_schemas. No provider_meta key is present.
• Searched the entire captured JSON file (~19 MB) for the literal string provider_meta. It appears exactly once, and only inside the human-readable description text of the functions.user_agent entry ("...for use with the user_agent argument in the provider or provider_meta block") - not as a structured schema entry.
• Cross-checked this against the documented output fields on the terraform providers schema CLI reference page, which lists provider, resource_schemas, data_source_schemas, ephemeral_resource_schemas, and functions - provider_meta isn't documented as an output field either.
• Confirmed the plugin protocol itself already carries this data: docs/plugin-protocol/tfplugin6.proto's GetProviderSchema.Response defines Schema provider_meta = 5;, a sibling field to Schema provider = 1;. So the provider genuinely returns a real schema for its provider_meta block over gRPC (that's how terraform init/validate type-check the user_agent argument's shape at parse time) — the JSON serialization in terraform providers schema -json just doesn't surface that field.

Without this, tools are left to either hardcode per-provider assumptions about provider_meta block contents, or fall back to an untyped escape hatch - unlike every other schema-driven capability the JSON output already supports.

Proposal

Add a provider_meta key to the per-provider object in terraform providers schema -json output, as a sibling to the existing provider key, sourced directly from the GetProviderSchema.Response.provider_meta field the plugin protocol already returns. Suggested shape - the same block/attributes schema representation already used for provider:

{
  "format_version": "1.0",
  "provider_schemas": {
    "registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws": {
      "provider": { "version": 0, "block": { "...": "..." } },
      "provider_meta": {
        "version": 0,
        "block": {
          "attributes": {
            "user_agent": {
              "type": ["list", "string"],
              "description_kind": "plain",
              "optional": true
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "resource_schemas": { "...": "..." }
    }
  }
}

When a provider defines no provider_meta schema, this key would presumably be omitted for that provider, consistent with how other optional schema sections already behave.

References

• provider: add provider_meta support terraform-provider-aws#45464 - adds the provider_meta "aws" { user_agent = [...] } argument and the provider::aws::user_agent(...) function this schema would describe.
• feat: Add provider meta user-agent terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-rds#615 - a real module consuming provider_meta "aws" { user_agent = [...] } for attribution.
• https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/internals/provider-meta
• https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/cli/commands/providers/schema

[crw]

Thanks for this feature request! If you are viewing this issue and would like to indicate your interest, please use the 👍 reaction on the issue description to upvote this issue. We also welcome additional use case descriptions. Thanks again!