Prerequisites

What you’ll need

Each tool is introduced in the module that first uses it, but here’s the full list so you can set up ahead of time.

• Terraform and Terragrunt — the IaC core.
• Cloud accounts and CLIs — an AWS account with the AWS CLI, a GCP project with gcloud, and an Azure subscription with the Azure CLI. A free tier on each is enough to follow along, but managed Kubernetes and databases cost real money — the course keeps footprints small and Module 13 covers teardown.
• kubectl and Helm — to talk to the clusters and deploy ShopMicro and the platform layer.
• git and a GitHub account — the CI/CD module runs on GitHub Actions.
• The ShopMicro repo — you deploy ShopMicro’s Helm chart; you don’t need to have built it first, but it helps to have read that guide.

⚠️ Costs and safety: three clusters plus managed databases are not free. Use small node counts and single regions, destroy what you’re not using, and set billing alerts on each cloud before you start.

What the course assumes

CloudDeploy is the advanced capstone. You’ll get the most out of it if you’re comfortable with:

• The command line and YAML/HCL — you’ll read and write a lot of both. Prior Terraform helps but isn’t required; Modules 2–3 teach it.
• Kubernetes basics — Pods, Deployments, Services, and Helm. The ShopMicro guide’s Kubernetes module is good grounding.
• General cloud literacy — the idea of VPCs, IAM, and managed services, even if you’ve only used one cloud. You do not need prior GCP or Azure experience; the differences are taught as they come up.
• CI basics — what a pipeline does; GitHub Actions is taught from scratch.

Verify

You’re set up when:

• terraform -version and terragrunt -version both work.
• aws sts get-caller-identity, gcloud auth list, and az account show each return your authenticated identity.
• kubectl version --client and helm version work.
• You have billing alerts configured on all three clouds.

Next, the roadmap shows where CloudDeploy fits — as the finale.