Source config_path provider argument from $KUBECONFIG env var

[drewgingerich]

Description

Can the config_path provider argument be sourced from $KUBECONFIG? The kubectl command uses KUBECONFIG by default so it makes sense to me that this provider would look in the same place. I think this could provide a smoother integration with other tools via consistent defaults.

My specific use-case is with Gitlab CI. Gitlab CI has a nice k8s cluster integration that automatically exports the KUBECONFG env var for each CI job. Because this provider looks for KUBE_CONFIG_PATH, I have to add some extra logic to re-export the kube config path. This sounds simple, but is made a bit more complex by what I'd consider a bug in Gitlab CI: adding

variables:
   KUBE_CONFIG_PATH: $KUBECONFIG

to my .gitlab-ci.yml script actually exports the contents of the kube config file. The solution I've found is to add a script to the container running the job, to properly export KUBE_CONFIG_PATH before running Terraform.

To maintain backward compatibility, sourcing from KUBECONFIG would be in addition to sourcing from KUBE_CONFIG_PATH. KUBE_CONFIG_PATH could have priority to help prevent surprises.

I'm wondering if this has been looked at before. The choice of KUBE_CONFIG_PATH certainly feels intentional. If so, why was it decided not to use KUBECONFIG?

If this sounds reasonable, I can work on it and submit a PR.

References

Also posted at: hashicorp/terraform-provider-kubernetes#1175

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[AndreasBergmeier6176]

Even worse - Kubernetes Provider works without specifying config_path (probably by falling back to $KUBECONFIG and then to $HOME/.kube/config). It would be great if the behavior of this provider would just match the behavior of Kubernetes Provider.

[vakaobr]

Would be great if somebody from the dev team take a look in this, the change introduced with v2.0.0 of provider remove KUBECONFIG in favor of KUBE_CONFIG_PATH and like the OP said, no backward compatibility is provided, increasing the complexity for the setup

[github-actions]

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