Finance cannot attribute the AWS bill to teams because resources created through Terraform carry inconsistent tags. The platform team wants every taggable AWS resource in a configuration to get cost-center and team tags without editing each resource block. What should it do?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Put the label maker on the provider, not on every box: default_tags stamps cost-center and team onto every supported resource. Workspace tags only label the workspace inside HCP Terraform; AWS never sees them, so you can't bill by them.
Full Explanation
The AWS provider's default_tags block applies a map of tags to every resource the provider manages that supports tagging, so cost-center and team values set once in the provider configuration, typically from input variables, reach all supported resources without per-resource edits. Resource-level tags still merge with the defaults, so teams can add specific tags while the cost allocation keys stay consistent. Once those tags are activated as cost allocation tags in AWS billing, finance can attribute spend by team. Workspace tags in HCP Terraform label the workspace for organization, filtering, cloud block selection and policy scoping; they are not propagated to cloud resources. A variable set can deliver a tags variable, but Terraform only uses a variable where configuration references it, and HCP Terraform never appends variable values to resource tags on its own. Cost estimation shows projected costs per run and does not split the cloud provider's invoice by team or by workspace owner. Exam caveat: default_tags is an AWS provider feature, and other providers have their own mechanisms or none, so enforcing tag presence with a policy is a sensible companion control. Operational check: run a plan after adding default_tags and confirm existing resources show in-place tag updates and new resources plan with both tags.