Week 0: Environment Setup & Cost Management

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

Install and configure Terraform CLI (version 1.9.0 or later required)
Configure AWS CLI with proper credentials
Set up and use Git/GitHub for version control
Install and configure Infracost for cost estimation
Set up AWS billing alerts and budgets to monitor spending
Understand the monorepo structure used throughout this course
Deploy a simple infrastructure and validate cost estimates

Overview

Week 0 is dedicated to setting up your development environment and understanding cost management fundamentals. These skills are critical for the rest of the course and for real-world cloud infrastructure work.

Important: Do not skip this week. Proper environment setup and cost awareness will save you time and money throughout the semester.

Prerequisites

Personal AWS account (or access to AWS Academy sandbox)
GitHub account
Computer with command-line access (Mac, Linux, or Windows with WSL2)
Text editor or IDE (VS Code recommended)

Key Topics

1. Tool Installation

Terraform CLI (version 1.9.0 or later for S3 native locking)
AWS CLI v2
Infracost
Git and GitHub CLI (optional)
VS Code extensions for Terraform

2. AWS Account Setup

Creating or accessing AWS account
Configuring IAM users and access keys
Understanding AWS Free Tier
Setting up billing alerts ($10-20 threshold recommended)

3. Cost Management

Understanding AWS pricing
Reading AWS bills
Using Infracost for cost estimation
Setting up budget notifications with Terraform
Auto-teardown strategies

4. Repository Structure

Understanding the monorepo layout
Fork and clone workflow
Working with week-XX/lab-YY/student-work directories
Pull request submission process

Labs

Lab 0: Getting Started

Resources

Next Week

Week 1: Your First Terraform Deployment