🌱 Terraform Module for GreenOps

Start measuring your infrastructure's energy consumption and cost in 5 minutes. This Terraform module deploys a complete green operations observability stack on Kubernetes, helping you make data-driven decisions about sustainability and efficiency.

Observability First: This module now defaults to observability-only mode — giving you actionable data without any automated changes to your workloads. Enable optimization features when you're ready.

⚡ Quick Start (5 Minutes)

You can't optimize what you don't measure. Most engineering teams lack visibility into:

How much energy their applications consume
Which workloads are the most expensive
Where to focus optimization efforts for maximum impact

This module gives you actionable observability — the foundation for all GreenOps initiatives.

Prerequisites: Kubernetes cluster with cert-manager installed (install here)

# Get visibility into energy and cost - no automation, just data
module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"
}

terraform init && terraform apply

That's it! You now have:

Prometheus monitoring stack with Grafana dashboards
Kepler measuring real-time energy consumption per pod
OpenCost tracking infrastructure costs
CodeCarbon tracking application-level carbon emissions

Access your dashboards:

kubectl port-forward -n monitoring svc/prometheus-community-grafana 3000:80
# Browse to http://localhost:3000 (admin / prom-operator)

Overview

The GreenOps Module provides a unified way to deploy and manage:

Observability & Scaling Infrastructure:
- Prometheus - Metrics collection and storage with kube-prometheus-stack
- KEDA - Kubernetes Event Driven Autoscaling with optional example deployments
Cost & Resource Efficiency:
- OpenCost - Cost monitoring and allocation with carbon cost tracking
Energy & Power Monitoring:
- Kepler - Environmental impact tracking via the Kepler Operator with optional power monitoring
- Scaphandre - Container-level power consumption monitoring
Carbon & Emissions Estimation:
- Carbon Intensity Exporter - Grid carbon intensity metrics for location-aware scheduling
- Cloud Carbon Footprint - Cloud infrastructure carbon emissions tracking
- CodeCarbon - Python code carbon emissions tracking
Sustainability Optimisation & Automation:
- KubeGreen - Automated resource cleanup and pod hibernation for cost optimisation

Default Configuration (Observability):

✅ Enabled: Prometheus, Kepler, OpenCost, CodeCarbon (safe, read-only monitoring)
❌ Disabled: KEDA, KubeGreen, Carbon Intensity Exporter, Cloud Carbon Footprint (require configuration or perform actions)

Why This Matters

Sustainable computing is no longer just about hardware—it's about how software consumes resources. GreenOps sits at the intersection of FinOps and DevOps, enabling you to:

👁️ Observe: Gain visibility into the real-time energy and carbon footprint of your clusters (Kepler, Scaphandre).
📉 Optimise: Automatically reduce waste by scaling down idle resources (KEDA) and hibernating non-production environments (KubeGreen).
💰 Attribute: Connect carbon emissions directly to financial costs for better accountability (OpenCost).
🧪 Measure: Quantify the environmental impact of your software code (CodeCarbon).

Efficient infrastructure is cheaper, faster, and greener.

Easy to Adopt

⚡ 5-Minute Start: Default configuration deploys observability tools with zero configuration
🚀 Unified Deployment: Manage 10+ sustainability tools with a single Terraform module, no "dependency hell."
🎛️ Simple Configuration: Toggles for every component mean you can start small (e.g., just Prometheus + OpenCost) and expand later.
🔄 Standard Interfaces: Built on Cloud Native standards (Prometheus, Grafana, Helm)
🛡️ Non-Intrusive: Most components run as sidecars, daemonsets, or operators without requiring changes to your application code.

Environmental Impact in Practice

What This Stack Optimises

Idle Resource Waste: Automatically shut down development and testing environments off-hours with KubeGreen.
Over-Provisioning: Use real-time metrics to right-size workloads and infrastructure.
Energy Transparency: Shift from "estimated" to "measured" energy usage for accurate ESG reporting.
Carbon-cost Trade-offs: Make informed decisions balancing performance, cost, and carbon footprint.

What It Does Not Do (By Default)

❌ Rewrite your application: It provides the data (CodeCarbon) to identify inefficient code, but the fix is up to you.
❌ Compromise availability: Optimisation tools like KubeGreen are strictly opt-in and configurable per-namespace.

This module provides the foundation and tooling to practice GreenOps effectively.

Dependencies

Important: OpenCost, Kepler, KEDA, and Scaphandre require Prometheus to function properly. You must either:

Deploy Prometheus via this module (enabled by default), or
Configure them to use an external Prometheus instance

If you disable Prometheus in this module, ensure you configure OpenCost, Kepler, KEDA, and Scaphandre to connect to your existing Prometheus deployment via their values configuration. KEDA's ScaledObject resources need to reference Prometheus for metrics-based scaling.

Kepler Requirement: Kepler requires cert-manager to be installed in your cluster before deployment. Without cert-manager, Kepler will not function properly. You can install it using:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.18.2/cert-manager.yaml

Requirements

Name	Version
terraform	>= 1.0 or OpenTofu >= 1.6
helm	>= 2.0
null	>= 3.0

Terraform >= 1.0 or OpenTofu
Kubernetes cluster (v1.24+)
Kubectl configured to access your cluster
cert-manager installed in your cluster (required for Kepler)

Usage

Get immediate visibility with zero configuration:

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"
  # That's it! Defaults to observability-only mode
  # Deploys: Prometheus, Kepler, OpenCost, CodeCarbon
}

Targeting a specific cluster

Set the kubectl context in your provider configuration or as a variable:

# In your example file (e.g., tier1-observe-only.tf)
variable "kubectl_context" {
  description = "Kubectl context to use"
  type        = string
  default     = "minikube"  # Or any context from: kubectl config get-contexts
}

provider "helm" {
  kubernetes {
    config_path    = "~/.kube/config"
    config_context = var.kubectl_context
  }
}

provider "kubectl" {
  config_path    = "~/.kube/config"
  config_context = var.kubectl_context
}

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"
  
  providers = {
    helm    = helm
    kubectl = kubectl
  }
  
  kubectl_context = var.kubectl_context
}

Deploy with:

# Use current kubectl context
terraform apply

# Or override to specific context
terraform apply -var="kubectl_context=staging-cluster"

Or use your current context by leaving kubectl_context empty or omitting config_context from providers.

Grafana Dashboards

Import these community dashboards for visualization:

Toggle Specific Components

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"

  observability = {
    prometheus = {
      enabled = true
    }
    keda = {
      enabled = false
    }
  }

  cost_efficiency = {
    opencost = {
      enabled = true
    }
  }

  energy_power = {
    kepler = {
      enabled = true
    }
    scaphandre = {
      enabled = false
    }
  }

  sustainability_optimisation = {
    kubegreen = {
      enabled = true
    }
  }
}

Custom Configuration

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"

  observability = {
    prometheus = {
      enabled      = true
      namespace    = "custom-monitoring"
      release_name = "prom"
      values = {
        prometheus = {
          prometheusSpec = {
            retention = "30d"
          }
        }
      }
    }
    keda = {
      enabled        = true
      namespace      = "custom-keda"
      deploy_example = false
      values         = {}
    }
  }

  cost_efficiency = {
    opencost = {
      enabled = true
      values = {
        opencost = {
          carbonCost = {
            enabled = true
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }

  energy_power = {
    kepler = {
      enabled             = true
      namespace           = "sustainability"
    }
  }
}

Inputs

Name	Description	Type	Default	Required
kubectl_config_path	Path to kubectl config file	`string`	`"~/.kube/config"`	no
kubectl_context	Kubectl context to use for deployment	`string`	`""` (current context)	no
observability	Observability and scaling tools (Prometheus, KEDA)	`object({...})`	`{}`	no
cost_efficiency	Cost and resource efficiency tools (OpenCost)	`object({...})`	`{}`	no
energy_power	Energy and power monitoring tools (Kepler, Scaphandre)	`object({...})`	`{}`	no
carbon_emissions	Carbon and emissions estimation tools (IE, CCF, CodeCarbon)	`object({...})`	`{}`	no
sustainability_optimisation	Sustainability optimisation tools (KubeGreen)	`object({...})`	`{}`	no

Detailed Input Schema

observability

observability = {
  prometheus = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool                    # Enable Prometheus (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)        # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)        # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)           # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)        # Helm chart version
  }))
  keda = optional(object({
    enabled        = bool                   # Enable KEDA (default: true)
    release_name   = optional(string)       # Helm release name
    namespace      = optional(string)       # Kubernetes namespace
    values         = optional(any)          # Helm chart values
    deploy_example = optional(bool)         # Deploy example manifests
    manifest_path  = optional(string)       # Path to example manifest
    chart_version  = optional(string)       # Helm chart version
  }))
}

cost_efficiency

cost_efficiency = {
  opencost = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool                    # Enable OpenCost (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)        # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)        # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)           # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)        # Helm chart version
  }))
}

energy_power

energy_power = {
  kepler = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool              # Enable Kepler (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)  # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)  # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)     # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)  # Helm chart version
  }))
  scaphandre = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool                    # Enable Scaphandre (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)        # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)        # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)           # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)        # Helm chart version
  }))
}

carbon_emissions

carbon_emissions = {
  carbon_intensity_exporter = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool                    # Enable Carbon Intensity Exporter (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)        # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)        # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)           # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)        # Helm chart version
  }))
  cloud_carbon_footprint = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool                    # Enable Cloud Carbon Footprint (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)        # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)        # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)           # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)        # Helm chart version
  }))
  codecarbon = optional(object({
    enabled         = bool                  # Enable CodeCarbon (default: true)
    name            = optional(string)      # Release name
    namespace       = optional(string)      # Kubernetes namespace
    image           = optional(string)      # Docker image
    api_endpoint    = optional(string)      # CodeCarbon API endpoint
    organization_id = optional(string)      # Organization ID
    project_id      = optional(string)      # Project ID
    experiment_id   = optional(string)      # Experiment ID
    api_key         = optional(string)      # API Key
  }))
}

sustainability_optimisation

sustainability_optimisation = {
  kubegreen = optional(object({
    enabled       = bool                    # Enable KubeGreen (default: true)
    release_name  = optional(string)        # Helm release name
    namespace     = optional(string)        # Kubernetes namespace
    values        = optional(any)           # Helm chart values
    chart_version = optional(string)        # Helm chart version
  }))
}

Chart Version Management

All modules support chart_version parameter within their respective configuration blocks. If set to "" (empty string) or omitted, it will deploy the latest available Helm chart version.

Outputs

The module provides outputs organised in nested objects for better structure:

observability

Observability and scaling outputs:

observability = {
  prometheus = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
  keda = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
}

cost_efficiency

Cost and resource efficiency outputs:

cost_efficiency = {
  opencost = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
}

energy_power

Energy and power monitoring outputs:

energy_power = {
  kepler = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
  scaphandre = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
}

sustainability_optimisation

Sustainability optimisation outputs:

sustainability_optimisation = {
  kubegreen = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
}

carbon_emissions

Carbon and emissions estimation outputs:

carbon_emissions = {
  carbon_intensity_exporter = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
  cloud_carbon_footprint = {
    namespace          = string
    release_name       = string
    version            = string
    client_service_url = string
    api_service_url    = string
  }
  codecarbon = {
    namespace    = string
    release_name = string
    version      = string
  }
}

deployed_components

Map showing which components are enabled:

deployed_components = {
  observability = {
    prometheus = bool
    keda       = bool
  }
  cost_efficiency = {
    opencost = bool
  }
  energy_power = {
    kepler     = bool
    scaphandre = bool
  }
  sustainability_optimisation = {
    kubegreen          = bool
  }
  carbon_emissions = {
    carbon_intensity_exporter = bool
    cloud_carbon_footprint    = bool
    codecarbon                = bool
  }
}

Configuration Examples

Minimal Deployment

Only enable Prometheus for basic monitoring:

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"

  observability = {
    prometheus = { enabled = true }
    keda       = { enabled = false }
  }
  cost_efficiency = {
    opencost = { enabled = false }
  }
  energy_power = {
    kepler     = { enabled = false }
  }
}

Cost Tracking Focus

Enable Prometheus and OpenCost for cost visibility:

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"

  observability = {
    prometheus = { enabled = true }
  }
  cost_efficiency = {
    opencost   = { enabled = true }
  }
}

Sustainability Monitoring

Complete stack for environmental tracking:

module "greenops" {
  source = "fabiocicerchia/greenops/kubernetes"

  # All enabled by default, just provide custom values if needed
  observability = {
    prometheus = {
      enabled = true
    }
  }

  cost_efficiency = {
    opencost = {
      enabled = true
    }
  }

  energy_power = {
    kepler = {
      enabled = true
    }
    scaphandre = {
      enabled = true  # Enable for container-level power monitoring
    }
  }

  sustainability_optimisation = {
    kubegreen = {
      enabled = true  # Enable for resource cleanup and pod hibernation
    }
  }

  carbon_emissions = {
    carbon_intensity_exporter = {
      enabled = true  # Enable for grid carbon intensity metrics
    }
    cloud_carbon_footprint = {
      enabled = true  # Enable for cloud infrastructure carbon tracking
    }
    codecarbon = {
      enabled = true  # Enable for Python code carbon emissions tracking
    }
  }
}

Using Different Git References

Deploy from specific tags, branches, or commits:

module "greenops" {
  source = "https://github.com/fabiocicerchia/terraform-kubernetes-greenops.git?ref=v1.0.0"
  # or use: ref=develop, ref=main, ref=abc1234 (commit SHA)
}

Local Development with Minikube

Start Minikube

minikube start --kubernetes-version=v1.34.0
minikube addons enable metrics-server
kubectl config use-context minikube && kubectl config current-context

Deploy the Stack

terraform init
terraform apply

Troubleshooting

Check Deployment Status

# Check all pods across all namespaces
kubectl get pods -A

Access Services Locally

Get Grafana admin password:

kubectl --namespace monitoring get secrets prometheus-community-grafana \
  -o jsonpath="{.data.admin-password}" | base64 -d ; echo

Port forward services:

# Prometheus
kubectl port-forward -n monitoring svc/prometheus-community-kube-prometheus 9090:9090

# Grafana (part of Prometheus)
kubectl port-forward -n monitoring svc/prometheus-community-grafana 3000:80

# OpenCost UI
kubectl port-forward -n opencost svc/opencost-charts 9091:9090

# Cloud Carbon Footprint
kubectl port-forward -n cloud-carbon-footprint svc/cloud-carbon-footprint-client 8080:80

Test the carbon-intensity-exporter:

kubectl get configmap -n carbon-intensity-exporter carbon-intensity -o jsonpath="{.binaryData.data}" | base64 -d ; echo

License

MIT

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 42 Commits
examples		examples
.gitignore		.gitignore
README.md		README.md
REQUIREMENTS.md		REQUIREMENTS.md
main.tf		main.tf
outputs.tf		outputs.tf
variables.tf		variables.tf
versions.tf		versions.tf

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🌱 Terraform Module for GreenOps

⚡ Quick Start (5 Minutes)

Overview

Why This Matters

Easy to Adopt

Environmental Impact in Practice

What This Stack Optimises

What It Does Not Do (By Default)

Dependencies

Requirements

Usage

Targeting a specific cluster

Grafana Dashboards

Toggle Specific Components

Custom Configuration

Inputs

Detailed Input Schema

observability

cost_efficiency

energy_power

carbon_emissions

sustainability_optimisation

Chart Version Management

Outputs

observability

cost_efficiency

energy_power

sustainability_optimisation

carbon_emissions

deployed_components

Configuration Examples

Minimal Deployment

Cost Tracking Focus

Sustainability Monitoring

Using Different Git References

Local Development with Minikube

Start Minikube

Deploy the Stack

Troubleshooting

Check Deployment Status

Access Services Locally

License

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