terraform-provider-files

README

Files.com Terraform Provider

The Files.com Terraform Provider makes it easy to manage your Files.com account using Terraform configuration files.

Files.com is the cloud-native, next-gen MFT, SFTP, and secure file-sharing platform that replaces brittle legacy servers with one always-on, secure fabric. Automate mission-critical file flows—across any cloud, protocol, or partner—while supporting human collaboration and eliminating manual work.

With universal SFTP, AS2, HTTPS, and 50+ native connectors backed by military-grade encryption, Files.com unifies governance, visibility, and compliance in a single pane of glass.

Introduction

Terraform lets you manage your Files.com resources using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) processes.

Terraform users define and configure data center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language known as Terraform Configuration Language, or optionally JSON.

The Files.com Provider for Terraform allows you to automate the management of your Files.com site, including resources such as users, groups, folders, share links, inboxes, automations, security, encryption, access protocols, permissions, remote servers, remote syncs, data governance, and more.

Requirements

• Terraform 0.13+

Installation

Require the provider in your Terraform configuration:

## Specify that we want to use the Files.com Provider

terraform {
  required_providers {
    files = {
      source = "Files-com/files"
    }
  }
}

## Configure the Files.com Provider with your API Key and site URL

provider "files" {
  api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
  endpoint_override = "https://MYSITE.files.com"
}

Explore the terraform-provider-files code on GitHub.

Authentication

Authenticate with an API Key

Authenticating with an API key is the recommended authentication method for most scenarios, and is the method used in the examples on this site.

To use the Terraform provider with an API Key, first generate an API key from the web interface or via the API or an SDK.

Note that when using a user-specific API key, if the user is an administrator, you will have full access to the entire API. If the user is not an administrator, you will only be able to access files that user can access, and no access will be granted to site administration functions in the API.

provider "files" {
  api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
}

## Alternatively, you can set the API key as an environment variable.
export FILES_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

Don't forget to replace the placeholder, YOUR_API_KEY, with your actual API key.

Configuration

Configuration Options

Endpoint Override

Setting the endpoint override for the API is required if your site is configured to disable global acceleration. This can also be set to use a mock server in development or CI.

provider "files" {
  endpoint_override = "https://SUBDOMAIN.files.com"
}

Sort and Filter

Several of the Files.com API resources have list operations that return multiple instances of the resource. The List operations can be sorted and filtered.

Sorting

To sort the returned data, pass in the sort_by method argument.

Each resource supports a unique set of valid sort fields and can only be sorted by one field at a time.

Special note about the List Folder Endpoint

For historical reasons, and to maintain compatibility with a variety of other cloud-based MFT and EFSS services, Folders will always be listed before Files when listing a Folder. This applies regardless of the sorting parameters you provide. These will be used, after the initial sort application of Folders before Files.

Filtering

Filters apply selection criteria to the underlying query that returns the results. They can be applied individually or combined with other filters, and the resulting data can be sorted by a single field.

Each resource supports a unique set of valid filter fields, filter combinations, and combinations of filters and sort fields.

Filter Types

Filter	Type	Description
filter	Exact	Find resources that have an exact field value match to a passed in value. (i.e., FIELD_VALUE = PASS_IN_VALUE).
filter_prefix	Pattern	Find resources where the specified field is prefixed by the supplied value. This is applicable to values that are strings.
filter_gt	Range	Find resources that have a field value that is greater than the passed in value. (i.e., FIELD_VALUE > PASS_IN_VALUE).
filter_gteq	Range	Find resources that have a field value that is greater than or equal to the passed in value. (i.e., FIELD_VALUE >= PASS_IN_VALUE).
filter_lt	Range	Find resources that have a field value that is less than the passed in value. (i.e., FIELD_VALUE < PASS_IN_VALUE).
filter_lteq	Range	Find resources that have a field value that is less than or equal to the passed in value. (i.e., FIELD_VALUE <= PASS_IN_VALUE).

Paths

Files.com preserves the spelling of file and folder paths while comparing them using shared case and Unicode rules. Use the SDK comparison helpers when matching paths locally.

Capitalization

Files.com uses case-insensitive path matching based on its fixed Unicode comparison map.

For example, the following paths have the same comparison key:

Path Variant	Comparison Key
Documents/Reports/Q1.pdf	documents/reports/q1.pdf
documents/reports/q1.PDF	documents/reports/q1.pdf
DOCUMENTS/REPORTS/Q1.PDF	documents/reports/q1.pdf

This behavior applies across:

• API requests
• Folder and file lookup operations
• Automations and workflows

See also: Case Sensitivity Documentation

Slashes

Use / between folder and file names, without leading or trailing slashes. SDK normalization helpers convert backslashes to /, remove duplicate separators, and discard exact . and .. components. Discarding .. leaves the preceding folder name intact.

Input	Normalized path
folder/subfolder/file.txt	folder/subfolder/file.txt
/folder/subfolder/file.txt	folder/subfolder/file.txt
folder/subfolder/file.txt/	folder/subfolder/file.txt
//folder//file.txt	folder/file.txt
folder/../file.txt	folder/file.txt

Unicode and Path Comparison

Files.com compares paths using a fixed mapping shared by the server and SDKs. It treats case and many accent differences as equivalent: Résumé.txt and resume.txt identify the same file, as do q followed by a combining acute accent and q. The mapping also handles other equivalences, such as Hiragana and Katakana. Lowercasing or applying a standard Unicode normalization form alone does not reproduce these rules.

SDK comparison helpers normalize path separators and dot segments, then apply the bundled versioned comparison map. The shared examples give exact comparison results for integrations that implement their own matching. The map uses hexadecimal Unicode scalar values as keys: a missing entry preserves the character, an empty replacement removes it, and other replacements may contain several characters. Apply each replacement once without normalizing or lowercasing the result again.

Use comparison results only for matching. Send the original path spelling in API requests and preserve it for display and local filenames; comparison results can have a different spelling or length.

Trailing whitespace is significant for comparison. report.txt and report.txt are different file paths, and SDK helpers preserve spaces, tabs, and newlines. Folder names cannot end in whitespace. See Unicode Normalization for the complete path rules.

Workspaces

A Workspace groups files, users, groups, Partners, integrations, and workflows within a Files.com Site. An integration can provision a Workspace for a department or project and delegate its operation to a team without making that team Site Administrators. Every Site has a Default Workspace, with ID 0; additional Workspaces have their own IDs and root folders.

Account membership, request context, and permission grants serve different purposes. Creating an account in a Workspace determines where it belongs. Selecting a Workspace determines which resources a request operates on. A permission grant determines what the caller can do there. Selecting a Workspace never grants access to it.

Accounts and Administrative Access

A user's or group's workspace_id identifies the Workspace the account belongs to. Accounts belonging to a Custom Workspace stay within it. Default Workspace users and groups can receive permissions in one or more Custom Workspaces while keeping their existing accounts in Workspace 0.

Account	Workspace Administrator assignment	Scope
User belonging to a Custom Workspace	Set the user's workspace_admin to true.	That user's own Custom Workspace.
Default Workspace user	Create an admin Permission for the user on a Custom Workspace's root folder.	Each Custom Workspace with a root grant.
Default Workspace group	Create an admin Permission for the group on a Custom Workspace's root folder.	Every member inherits administration of each Workspace with a root grant.

workspace_admin is not a summary of a user's effective administrative access. A Default Workspace user can administer a Custom Workspace through a direct or group root grant while their workspace_admin remains false. Groups have no workspace_admin field. See Users and Groups for account fields.

An admin grant on the Custom Workspace root provides full Workspace Administrator authority over its files, users, groups, Partners, workflows, and integrations. An admin grant on a subfolder provides Folder Admin authority over that folder and its descendants; it does not provide Workspace administration. Other permission levels provide their corresponding folder access without Workspace administration. Permissions defines the levels.

Site Administrators manage cross-Workspace assignments to Default Workspace accounts. Workspace Administrators manage accounts and permissions within their own scope. Site Administrators retain access to every Workspace; adding a Workspace grant does not narrow Site Administrator authority. The product documentation explains the administrator's operational scope and site-wide controls.

Request Context and API Keys

You can include the X-Files-Workspace-Id REST header to select a Workspace for a request. SDK request options and CLI configuration send that same selection. When a Workspace is selected, Workspace-scoped resources are listed, created, and changed within that context, and ordinary paths are relative to its root.

A resource's workspace_id request field describes the resource's Workspace membership. It is separate from the SDK's Workspace request option or REST header. Creating a Workspace-scoped resource in a Custom Workspace defaults its workspace_id to the selected Workspace; a mismatching membership value is rejected with not-authorized/insufficient-permission-for-params.

Selecting another Workspace with an API key requires a Full Access key created in the Default Workspace. A user key follows that user's current access, including group permissions. A site-wide Full Access key created in the Default Workspace has Site Administrator authority in every Workspace. A Files Only key stays in its creation Workspace, even if its user has cross-Workspace access. Any key created in a Custom Workspace stays within that Workspace. Selecting another context with these confined keys is rejected with bad-request/invalid-workspace-id-header.

An account belonging to a Custom Workspace is scoped there when it authenticates normally. For a Default Workspace user, explicitly select the intended Workspace for an integration rather than relying on an interactive login preference. API Keys and Authentication cover credentials.

The adjacent request uses the member's own Default Workspace Full Access user key to list the root of Workspace 123, after access has been assigned.

curl 'https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.files.com/api/rest/v1/folders/' \
  -H 'X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_MEMBER_API_KEY' \
  -H 'X-Files-Workspace-Id: 123'

Delegating a Workspace to an Existing Group

An operations team already represented by a Default Workspace group can administer a Custom Workspace through one root Permission. The group and its members stay in the Default Workspace, so the same team can receive different access in other Workspaces.

First retrieve the target Workspace and Group IDs as a Site Administrator in Workspace 0. The examples use Workspace 123, group 456, and member user 789; replace them with your own IDs. Confirm that the group belongs to Workspace 0 and that the intended user is a member.

Create the Permission using a Default Workspace Full Access site-wide key or a Full Access user key belonging to a Site Administrator. Keep the request context at 0 and use the qualified root path _/Workspaces/123. Set group_id to the group's ID, permission to admin, and recursive to true. Save the returned Permission id for later removal. For an individual Default Workspace user, use user_id instead of group_id.

For a Default Workspace group, a Site Administrator can also select Workspace 123 and use an empty path to grant access to its root. The qualified path in Workspace 0 works for both Default Workspace users and groups and keeps the account scope and target Workspace explicit. Appending a subfolder to the path would grant Folder Admin access instead of Workspace Administrator authority.

After the grant, make a request as the member, using their own credential with Workspace 123 selected, such as listing that Workspace's root folder. That member can work with the Workspace's files and perform Workspace Administrator operations, such as managing its users, Partners, and integrations. A Site Administrator's successful request does not establish that the member has the intended access.

curl 'https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.files.com/api/rest/v1/workspaces' \
  -H 'X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_SITE_ADMIN_API_KEY' \
  -H 'X-Files-Workspace-Id: 0'
curl 'https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.files.com/api/rest/v1/groups' \
  -H 'X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_SITE_ADMIN_API_KEY' \
  -H 'X-Files-Workspace-Id: 0'

curl 'https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.files.com/api/rest/v1/permissions' \
  -X POST \
  -H 'X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_SITE_ADMIN_API_KEY' \
  -H 'X-Files-Workspace-Id: 0' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"path":"_/Workspaces/123","group_id":456,"permission":"admin","recursive":true}'

Permission Inspection and Removal

List the member's Permissions with user_id and include_groups=true to include grants inherited through group membership. Listing only direct user grants can miss the Permission that provides Workspace administration. In Workspace 0, the Custom Workspace root appears as _/Workspaces/123; in Workspace 123, paths are relative to that root. Inspect the root path and permission=admin, rather than treating the user's workspace_admin field as their effective administrative access.

Permission lists show individual grants, rather than a single flag for effective administrative access. Membership in several groups combines their access. A Permission using group_ids instead of group_id requires membership in all the specified groups; it is not a shorthand for assigning the same grant to several independent groups.

Removing a member ends access received through that group. Deleting the root Permission ends the group's Workspace Administrator grant for every member. These changes leave independent direct and other group grants in place, so review all applicable grants when withdrawing access. Default Workspace user API keys follow those permission changes without being recreated.

Group membership maintained through SCIM follows the same rule. A Group Admin allowed to add members can give those users the group's existing Workspace Administrator access. Choose who manages the group with that authority in mind.

Delete the Permission by its returned id as the Site Administrator in Workspace 0. The removal examples use Permission ID 9001; replace it with the ID returned by your create request. Permissions are created and deleted, rather than updated in place. If narrower folder access is still needed, assign it explicitly; deleting a broad grant does not restore narrower grants it previously replaced.

curl 'https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.files.com/api/rest/v1/permissions?user_id=789&include_groups=true' \
  -H 'X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_SITE_ADMIN_API_KEY' \
  -H 'X-Files-Workspace-Id: 0'
curl 'https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.files.com/api/rest/v1/permissions/9001' \
  -X DELETE \
  -H 'X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_SITE_ADMIN_API_KEY' \
  -H 'X-Files-Workspace-Id: 0'

Foreign Language Support

The Files.com Terraform Provider will soon be updated to support localized responses by using a configuration method. When available, it can be used to guide the API in selecting a preferred language for applicable response content.

Language support currently applies to select human-facing fields only, such as notification messages and error descriptions.

If the specified language is not supported or the value is omitted, the API defaults to English.

Errors

Mock Server

Files.com publishes a mock Files.com API server, which is useful for testing your use of the Files.com SDKs and other direct integrations against the Files.com API in an integration test environment. It never checks credentials: send any placeholder API key, such as YOUR_API_KEY, and never use real Files.com credentials with it.

The server has two modes, chosen when it starts:

• Legacy mode (the default) checks required parameters and parameter types, then returns a fixed example response for each API endpoint. It does not maintain state and it does not deeply inspect your submissions for correctness, which makes it useful for testing basic network operations and JSON encoding for your SDK or API client.
• Simulation mode keeps records, files and folders in memory, so a test can create, list, update and delete resources, upload a file and download the same bytes, and make chosen requests fail, stall or lose their connection on purpose. Requests it does not simulate fail with a clear error instead of returning an example response.

Quick Start with Docker

With Docker installed, start the published image from Docker Hub with the command shown. It runs legacy mode at http://127.0.0.1:4041, reachable from your machine only: point your integration's Files.com API base URL there and use a placeholder API key. Stop it with Ctrl+C; --rm removes its container.

The published image is built for linux/amd64 only, so the command asks for that platform; without it, Docker on a machine of another architecture, such as an Apple silicon Mac, looks for an image the tag does not have. The latest tag moves to whichever server was published last, and --pull=always fetches it again each time, so it need not include simulation mode. To run simulation mode, build the image from the source as below.

docker run --platform linux/amd64 --rm --pull=always -p 127.0.0.1:4041:4041 filescom/files-mock-server:latest

## In another terminal, with a placeholder API key:
curl -H "X-FilesAPI-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" http://127.0.0.1:4041/api/rest/v1/users

Simulation Mode in Docker

To run exactly the server the source's README describes, simulation mode included, build the image from a checkout of the source on GitHub and run it by the image ID you record with your test results. Only linux/amd64 builds of the source have been checked, so both commands ask for that platform.

Simulation mode listens only on loopback unless told otherwise, so the command binds it to the container's interfaces with -b tcp://0.0.0.0:4041 and publishes the port on your machine's loopback address only. FILES_MOCK_TRANSFER_ORIGIN tells it the address your tests use, so the upload and download URLs it returns point at the published port.

Simulation mode keeps its state only in the server process. Its control endpoints under /__files_mock/v1 report when the server is ready, reset it with your fixtures, add fault rules and return the journal of the requests it received. It refuses work over its limits instead of truncating it. The README in the source describes all of these, the operations it simulates and how to configure its limits.

## In a checkout of the source:
docker build --platform linux/amd64 -t files-mock-server:local .
image=$(docker image inspect --format '{{.Id}}' files-mock-server:local)
echo "$image"   # record this ID with your test results
docker run --platform linux/amd64 --rm -e FILES_MOCK_MODE=simulation \
  -e FILES_MOCK_TRANSFER_ORIGIN=http://127.0.0.1:40410 \
  -p 127.0.0.1:40410:4041 "$image" -b tcp://0.0.0.0:4041

## In another terminal:
curl http://127.0.0.1:40410/__files_mock/v1/ready

From the Source with Ruby

Start the server from its source with Ruby and Bundler. FILES_MOCK_MODE is read once at startup: leaving it unset or setting it to legacy starts legacy mode, simulation starts simulation mode, and any other value stops startup with an error. Legacy mode listens on port 4041 on all IPv4 interfaces, and simulation mode on 127.0.0.1:4041.

bundle install

## Legacy mode
bundle exec puma

## Simulation mode
FILES_MOCK_MODE=simulation bundle exec puma

Usage

The macOS provider binaries require macOS 13 or later. Building from source requires Go 1.27.2 or later.

See the docs directory for Resource and Data Source examples and documentation.

Debugging

This provider uses the standard Terraform debugging methods. For more information, please refer to the Terraform Debugging documentation.

Getting Support

The Files.com team is happy to help with any SDK Integration challenges you may face.

Just email support@files.com and we'll get the process started.