don't hijack TF_VAR, please use OCI instead.

[tkellen]

Please consider using your own prefix for environment variables (OCI suggested here). For consumers of this SDK that are not using terraform, TF_VAR is nonsensical. For consumers of terraform, the fact that TF_VAR references are accepted with no corresponding terraform variable blocks is very confusing.

Given this local configuration...

export TF_VAR_tenancy_ocid="..."
export TF_VAR_compartment_ocid="..."
export TF_VAR_user_ocid="..."
export TF_VAR_fingerprint="..."
export TF_VAR_private_key="..."

It should NOT be possible to authenticate to OCI using this terraform configuration (but currently is):

provider "oci" {}

When using TF_VAR as a prefix, this configuration would be consistent with every other usage of terraform that exists in the ecosystem today:

provider "oci" {
  region       = "us-chicago-1"
  tenancy_ocid = var.tenancy_ocid
  user_ocid    = var.user_ocid
  fingerprint  = var.fingerprint
  private_key  = var.private_key
}

variable "tenancy_ocid" {}
variable "user_ocid" {}
variable "fingerprint" {}
variable "private_key" {}

By changing the supported prefix to OCI and removing TF_VAR you would be introducing a breaking change for downstream consumers. Authentication (in terraform) without explicit variable references would stop working. Authenication in every other context for consumers that aren't in terraform, would make a bit more sense.

If this change is landed, the following configuration would produce "normal" behavior consistent with every other provider in the ecosystem:

export OCI_tenancy_ocid="..."
export OCI_compartment_ocid="..."
export OCI_user_ocid="..."
export OCI_fingerprint="..."
export OCI_private_key="..."

provider oci {}

For reference, in the AWS world the same is possible using AWS-prefixed environment variables like AWS_ACCESS_KEY etc.

If this is landed, the documentation here should simply switch from TF_VAR prefixes to OCI prefixes. Again, though this would be a breaking change, it would produce behavior consistent with the entire terraform ecosystem. If there are OSS repositories for this documentation I would be happy to submit companion PRs that explain this "fix".

/ref #318 (comment)

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[tkellen]

@sahilg11, I believe you authored support for this originally over at https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-oci/, can you please weigh in on the veracity of this request?

[tkellen]

Also worth noting that the environment variables supported by the CLI (written in python) are not supported in the language-specific SDKs which further confuses things for consumers. See: #495.