How to cache providers in EC2 worker pools

When running jobs on EC2 worker pools, you can optimize execution times by caching provider binaries. Here are two recommended approaches:

Using the binaries cache volume

Private workers come with a built-in binaries cache volume that automatically stores and reuses provider binaries between runs. This feature is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration.

Environment variable configuration

You can configure provider caching by setting the TF_PLUGIN_CACHE_DIR environment variable. This tells OpenTofu where to store provider binaries locally, reducing download times for subsequent runs.

Advanced optimization

For maximum performance, you can create a custom runner image with pre-installed providers. This eliminates the need to download providers during runtime. See our documentation on custom runner images for more details.