Local Variables

Local variables in function-hcl work like Terraform locals, with some important differences.

Basics

Define locals in a locals block. Access them directly by name – no local. prefix needed.

locals {
  baseName     = req.composite.metadata.name
  computedName = "${baseName}-bucket"
}

Ordering Doesn’t Matter

All locals blocks in a given scope are processed together and variable ordering doesn’t matter. Dependencies are resolved automatically. This is the same behavior as Terraform.

# These two blocks are treated identically:
locals {
  computedName = "${baseName}-bucket"
}

locals {
  baseName = req.composite.metadata.name
}

Circular references (e.g. locals { a = b; b = a }) are an error.

Scoped Locals

Unlike Terraform, function-hcl allows locals blocks at multiple levels:

• Top-level – available everywhere in the script
• Inside resource blocks – available only within that resource (has access to self)
• Inside resources template blocks – available within the template (has access to self and each)
• Inside group blocks – available to all resources in the group
• Inside requirement blocks – available within the requirement
• Inside function blocks – available within the function body

Inner scopes can access variables from outer scopes:

locals {
  compName = req.composite.metadata.name # top-level
}

resource my-bucket {
  locals {
    resourceName = "${compName}-bucket" # can use top-level locals
  }

  body = {
    # ...
    metadata = { name = resourceName }
  }
}

No Shadowing

A local variable cannot shadow a name from a parent scope. This is an error:

locals {
  x = "top-level"
}

resource my-resource {
  locals {
    x = "resource-level"  # ERROR: shadows top-level local 'x'
  }
  body = { ... }
}

It is valid to use the same local variable name in different resource blocks, as long as there is no top-level local with that name:

resource bucket-a {
  locals {
    region = "us-east-1"  # OK
  }
  body = { ... }
}

resource bucket-b {
  locals {
    region = "eu-west-1"  # OK -- different scope from bucket-a
  }
  body = { ... }
}

What Locals Can Access

Locals can access:

• The req variable
• Other local variables (in the same or parent scope)
• self and each variables (when inside a resource or resources block)