Terraform Cloud with Local Resources

I have been using Terraform for home use in my lab environment. I want to start using VCS to manage my Terraform deployments, but that would involve allowing Terraform Cloud to push changes into my personal network from the Internet. As I am on the Free plan, I do not have access to Agents.
What are my options at this point? I don’t want to open my network to the wider Internet in order to do Plans/Applies from TFC. I think it’s strange that I can use VCS to manage my cloud environments with TFC, but not my local environment. Am I missing something?

Hi @ApatheticRiku,

The built-in managed agents in Terraform Cloud are intended for the “easier” case of working with public cloud APIs that are accessible over the Internet. As you’ve found, they are not so well suited for managing private infrastructure because they have no way to access your private APIs unless you expose them on the internet.

Hosting your own Terraform Cloud agent is the intended solution to this problem but you are correct that free tier accounts don’t have access to that feature.

I think you’ve already got a good sense of what your options are here and I’m afraid I don’t have any ideas to add beyond what you’ve already considered.