Interactive workflow: GitLab CI → YAML → Terraform → KubeVirt VM

1. Developer pushes VM spec (YAML)

# vm-spec.yaml
apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
  name: rhel9-vm
  namespace: vms
spec:
  running: true
  template:
    spec:
      domain:
        cpu:
          cores: 2
        memory: 4Gi
        devices:
          disks:
          - name: rootdisk
            disk: {}
      volumes:
      - name: rootdisk
        dataVolume:
          name: rhel9-dv

Plain KubeVirt manifest fragment stored in GitLab repo.

2. GitLab CI renders Terraform file

# rendered vm.tf (snippet)
terraform {
  required_providers {
    kubernetes = {
      source  = "hashicorp/kubernetes"
      version = ">= 2.20"
    }
  }
}

resource "kubernetes_manifest" "vm" {
  manifest = yamldecode(file("${path.module}/vm-spec.yaml"))
}

Job uses a small Python/Jinja2 script to wrap the YAML into a kubernetes_manifest resource.

3. Terraform plan / apply

# .gitlab-ci.yml excerpt
plan:
  stage: plan
  script:
    - terraform init
    - terraform plan -out=tfplan
apply:
  stage: apply
  when: manual
  only: [main]
  script:
    - terraform apply -auto-approve tfplan

State stored in GitLab-managed backend (EE) or Terraform Cloud.

4. OpenShift creates the VM

KubeVirt operator picks up the CR and boots the VM. Ready ✔