Terraform provider via Speakeasy (same OpenAPI spec pipeline)

[anthonyangel]

Summary

Clerk already uses Speakeasy to generate this Python SDK from an OpenAPI spec. Speakeasy also supports generating a Terraform provider as an output target from the same spec — meaning much of the scaffolding for a Clerk Terraform provider is already in place.

This would let teams manage Clerk configuration (applications, organizations, roles, permissions, etc.) as infrastructure-as-code alongside the rest of their stack.

Context

• Clerk roadmap item (221 upvotes, currently in backlog): https://feedback.clerk.com/roadmap?id=82b49526-b724-4811-b999-bee569b94143
• Speakeasy Terraform support: https://www.speakeasy.com/docs/terraform

Since clerk-sdk-python is already generated via Speakeasy from an OpenAPI spec (see .speakeasy/gen.yaml), adding a Terraform provider target to the same pipeline would be a relatively low-lift way to deliver on the roadmap item — no need to hand-author provider resources or maintain a separate API client.

What we'd use it for

We're building an IaC engine for Clerk (roles, permissions, organization settings) and currently drive it through the Python SDK. A Terraform/Pulumi provider would let us (and others) manage Clerk declaratively with proper state tracking, drift detection, and plan/apply workflows — the same way we manage GCP, Datadog, and other services.

Ask

Would the Clerk team consider adding a Terraform provider output to the existing Speakeasy generation pipeline? Happy to help test or contribute if there's interest.

[jescalan]

Hey @anthonyangel - this is very reasonable feedback, and we have had a lot of folks request this. We have held off so far because Clerk does not yet have a stable management API - we don't have endpoints that allow creation of Clerk applications or setting of configuration values, which is generally the primary use for terraform providers, to be able to provision infra as code.

We are however actively working on a management api (we're calling it a "platform api"), and when that is out I'd be surprised if a TF provider doesn't land soon after!

[anthonyangel]

Hi @jescalan I've seen the Platform API docs - my use case is more related to the resources in the backend API, e.g. today I needed to set up roles and permissions - these likely have a low rate of change, but they are fiddly, the blast radius of getting them wrong is pretty big and I need to set them up in more than 1 place (dev & prod), so they tick every box about something which should be IAC rather than manual