Terraform is more than just a tool for provisioning infrastructure — it’s a language for expressing developer intent. At its best, a Terraform provider doesn’t just mirror an API, it interprets it, offering abstractions that are more usable, consistent, and aligned with real-world use cases. The difference between a great provider and a raw one often comes down to how well it hides the complexity of the underlying platform.

This is perhaps most clearly illustrated in the contrast between the AzAPI provider and the AzureRM provider. AzAPI offers direct access to Azure’s ARM surface area, exposing every configurable detail but also all its verbosity and complexity. AzureRM, by contrast, reshapes that surface into logical, developer-centric resources that smooth the API’s rough edges and elevate the authoring experience.

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This same philosophy can be applied to unconventional domains like Minecraft. In this article, we explore how a custom Terraform resource, minecraft_chest, abstracts the complexity of chest placement in the game—offering a clean, declarative interface to something that would otherwise require detailed procedural logic. And in doing so, it echoes many of the same design choices and tradeoffs that make AzureRM more usable than AzAPI.

Why Chests Are Not So Simple

On the surface, a Minecraft chest seems like a simple block. But it turns out that chests introduce a subtle complexity. Unlike most blocks, a chest can exist in two forms: single (a standalone block) or double (two connected blocks forming a large chest). In the case of a double chest, the two blocks must be placed precisely, with one defined as the left and the other as the right, and they must exist side-by-side in the same orientation.

There are also variants: trapped chests trigger redstone events, and waterlogged chests can exist underwater. These nuances aren’t just cosmetic — they impact how the chest functions in the game world.

Beds in Minecraft also require two blocks, but they always require two and behave in a fixed pattern. Chests differ in that their size is dynamic. A single chest may become a double chest depending on player actions or Terraform configuration. This dynamic behavior makes it a strong candidate for abstraction.

The minecraft_chest Resource: A Unified Abstraction

Here’s what a user-friendly Terraform resource for a Minecraft chest might look like:

resource "minecraft_chest" "chest1" {

  size = "double"

  position = {
    x = -254
    y = 69
    z = -102
  }

}

With this simple block of configuration, the developer can create either a single or double chest, choose whether it’s trapped, and set its waterlogged state. There’s no need to know what block types to use or how the left/right pairing of a double chest works under the hood. That complexity is handled by the provider.

Compare this to what it would take to manually configure the same result using the raw setblock commands: multiple calls, correct metadata flags, and positional logic that must be implemented by hand. This is exactly the kind of complexity that Terraform abstractions are meant to eliminate.

Schema Definition and Intent

The Terraform schema for minecraft_chest reflects this philosophy of composable abstraction:

func (t chestResourceType) GetSchema(ctx context.Context) (tfsdk.Schema, diag.Diagnostics) {
 return tfsdk.Schema{
  MarkdownDescription: "A Minecraft chest. Can be a single chest or a double chest (two blocks side by side).",
  Attributes: map[string]tfsdk.Attribute{
   "position": {
    MarkdownDescription: "The position of the first chest block.",
    Required:            true,
    Attributes: tfsdk.SingleNestedAttributes(map[string]tfsdk.Attribute{
     "x": {
      Type:     types.NumberType,
      Required: true,
     },
     "y": {
      Type:     types.NumberType,
      Required: true,
     },
     "z": {
      Type:     types.NumberType,
      Required: true,
     },
    }),
   },
   "size": {
    MarkdownDescription: "The chest size: `single` or `double`.",
    Required:            true,
    Type:                types.StringType,
   },
   "trapped": {
    MarkdownDescription: "Whether this is a trapped chest. Defaults to false.",
    Optional:            true,
    Type:                types.BoolType,
   },
   "waterlogged": {
    MarkdownDescription: "Whether the chest is waterlogged. Defaults to false.",
    Optional:            true,
    Type:                types.BoolType,
   },
   "id": {
    Computed:            true,
    MarkdownDescription: "ID of the chest resource.",
    PlanModifiers: tfsdk.AttributePlanModifiers{
     tfsdk.UseStateForUnknown(),
    },
    Type: types.StringType,
   },
  },
 }, nil
}

This single resource expresses all the developer’s intent, while hiding all of the implementation logic required to translate that intent into correct Minecraft behavior.

Implementation: Translating Intent into Action

type chestResourceData struct {
 Id          types.String `tfsdk:"id"`
 Size        string       `tfsdk:"size"`
 Trapped     *bool        `tfsdk:"trapped"`
 Waterlogged *bool        `tfsdk:"waterlogged"`
 Position    struct {
  X int `tfsdk:"x"`
  Y int `tfsdk:"y"`
  Z int `tfsdk:"z"`
 } `tfsdk:"position"`
}

The logic first determines whether the chest is a regular or trapped variant:

 material := "minecraft:chest"
 if trapped {
  material = "minecraft:trapped_chest"
 }

Then, the implementation differentiates between single and double chests:

 switch data.Size {
 case "single":
  block := fmt.Sprintf(`%s[type=single,waterlogged=%t]`, material, waterlogged)
  err = client.CreateBlock(ctx, block, data.Position.X, data.Position.Y, data.Position.Z)
  if err != nil {
   resp.Diagnostics.AddError("Client Error", fmt.Sprintf("Unable to place single chest: %s", err))
   return
  }
 case "double":
  blockLeft := fmt.Sprintf(`%s[type=left,waterlogged=%t]`, material, waterlogged)
  blockRight := fmt.Sprintf(`%s[type=right,waterlogged=%t]`, material, waterlogged)
  err = client.CreateBlock(ctx, blockLeft, data.Position.X, data.Position.Y, data.Position.Z)
  if err != nil {
   resp.Diagnostics.AddError("Client Error", fmt.Sprintf("Unable to place left half of double chest: %s", err))
   return
  }
  err = client.CreateBlock(ctx, blockRight, data.Position.X+1, data.Position.Y, data.Position.Z)
  if err != nil {
   _ = client.DeleteBlock(ctx, data.Position.X, data.Position.Y, data.Position.Z)
   resp.Diagnostics.AddError("Client Error", fmt.Sprintf("Unable to place right half of double chest: %s", err))
   return
  }
 default:
  resp.Diagnostics.AddError("Validation Error", "size must be 'single' or 'double'")
  return
 }

The abstraction handles positioning, left/right assignment, waterlogging, and rollback in the event of an error — freeing the developer from these details.

Why Not Separate Resources?

A natural question arises: why not define two separate resources — minecraft_single_chest and minecraft_double_chest? That would reduce internal branching, after all.

But this would violate a deeper truth about chests in Minecraft: a single and double chest are the same kind of thing, just in different states. A single chest can become a double chest through adjacency. They share a behavioral and structural kinship. Creating two separate resources would force users to think about distinctions that don’t matter in practice, and that they may want to change over time.

This is similar to how AzureRM models a virtual machine — one resource can express many underlying configurations. AzAPI, by contrast, might expose those details across multiple resource types, requiring the user to wire them together manually. The design of minecraft_chest reflects the AzureRM approach: shape the abstraction around how developers think, not around how the API works.

The Case for a Separate minecraft_ender_chest

There are cases where separate resources make sense. An ender chest is a fundamentally different object in Minecraft: it can never be double, has unique usage mechanics, and doesn’t share the same configuration logic as standard or trapped chests. In this case, creating a separate resource like minecraft_ender_chest is justified—just as AzureRM separates distinct Azure services like azurerm_app_service and azurerm_function_app, even if they share some underlying infrastructure.

Conclusion

Terraform resources are most powerful when they express what the developer wants, not what the underlying API demands. The minecraft_chest resource embodies this principle, abstracting a nuanced, multi-modal block into a clean, expressive interface that’s easy to understand and safe to use.

Like the AzureRM provider for Azure, it offers an interpretation of the API that’s optimized for human use. And like AzAPI, raw Minecraft commands offer full control — but at the cost of complexity and verbosity. The goal of a good provider is to meet the developer where they are, abstracting without oversimplifying, and shaping APIs into tools of intent.

From Minecraft chests to Azure cloud infrastructure, the lesson holds true: the value of a resource lies in how well it hides what you shouldn’t have to care about.