Terraform Procedures

Terraform Procedures — State, plan/apply, and OpenTofu compatibility

Knowledge reference for Terraform/OpenTofu operations used by infrastructure-change workflows. Covers the plan/apply lifecycle, state-management commands, refactoring patterns, and fork-compatibility notes. Designed to be loaded as background context when a workflow encounters Terraform configs.

Terraform fork detection — OpenTofu

If .terraform-version or tofu.lock.hcl indicates OpenTofu (HashiCorp BSL fork, 2023+), substitute tofu for terraform in all commands below. Flag semantics are identical for the operations covered in this skill.

Other indicators of an OpenTofu repo:

• tofu binary referenced in CI configs instead of terraform
• .tofu/ directory or tofu.tf files

Plan / apply lifecycle

Pre-plan validation

terraform validate
terraform fmt -check -recursive

Modern pre-plan suite (run when configs are present):

tflint                              # if .tflint.hcl present
tfsec . --soft-fail                 # if tfsec.yml or .tfsec/ present
checkov -d . --soft-fail            # if .checkov.yml present
terraform-docs markdown table .     # regenerate docs if terraform-docs.yml present

Plan with detailed exit codes

terraform plan -out=tfplan -detailed-exitcode
# Exit codes:
#   0 = no changes
#   1 = error
#   2 = changes proposed

The -detailed-exitcode form is the standard oracle for iterative reconciliation loops (RALF): success = 0 (no diff).

Apply

terraform apply tfplan

Always apply a saved plan file, never re-plan during apply. Re-planning at apply time can introduce drift between what was reviewed and what is executed.

Plan summary format

When presenting a plan for review, summarise as:

## Terraform Plan Summary
| Action  | Count | Resources |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Add     | X     | [list]    |
| Change  | X     | [list]    |
| Destroy | X     | [list]    |

WARNING — DESTROY/REPLACE resources:
- [resource] — [reason]

Data loss risk: [yes/no]
Estimated cost impact: [if applicable]

State operations — use with extreme caution

State surgery is the second-most-fragile area after destroy. Always back up state before any of these operations (terraform state pull > backup.tfstate).

terraform state list                                # enumerate resources
terraform state show <addr>                         # inspect a resource
terraform state mv <src> <dst>                      # rename / refactor
terraform state rm <addr>                           # remove from state (resource still exists in cloud)
terraform import <addr> <id>                        # adopt an existing cloud resource
terraform state pull > backup.tfstate               # snapshot state
terraform state push backup.tfstate                 # restore (DANGEROUS)

Refactor without state surgery

For module refactoring, prefer moved {} blocks (TF v1.1+) and removed {} blocks (TF v1.7+) — they encode the rename inside .tf files instead of imperative state ops, which means:

• Changes are reviewable in PRs
• The refactor is reproducible across workspaces
• No risk of half-applied state on operator error

Example moved block:

moved {
  from = aws_instance.old_name
  to   = aws_instance.new_name
}

Partial-apply anti-pattern

-target=<resource> for partial-apply is an anti-pattern except in emergencies. State drift between resources causes surprising future plans and breaks the invariant that the state file matches the configuration.

If -target becomes necessary (e.g., breaking a cyclic dependency during initial bootstrap), follow up immediately with a full plan/apply to reconcile.

Workspaces

Terraform workspaces partition state within a single backend:

terraform workspace list
terraform workspace new <name>
terraform workspace select <name>
terraform workspace show

Workspaces are appropriate for per-environment state (dev/staging/prod) when the configuration is identical and only variable values differ. For divergent configurations, prefer separate root modules.

Policy-as-code gate

If .conftest/ (Conftest), .opa/ (raw OPA Rego), .tflint.hcl (TFLint), or tfsec.yml (tfsec) / .checkov.yml (Checkov) configs are present, run them as a pre-plan gate. A plan that violates policy never advances to apply.

Rollback

# Revert the .tf file changes and re-apply
terraform plan -out=tfplan-rollback
terraform apply tfplan-rollback

For state-only rollback (after a botched state mv or state rm):

terraform state push backup.tfstate

State rollback overwrites the backend state and should be coordinated with whoever holds the workspace lock.

When this applies

Integration

• Used by: /infra-change (Steps 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 — Terraform plan/apply lifecycle)
• Companion knowledge: @gitops-detection (HCP Terraform / Terraform Cloud / Atlantis / Spacelift / env0 controllers that own the apply gate)
• External references: Terraform docs, OpenTofu docs, moved block, removed block