Workflow

Understand Terraform’s working cycle from initialization to destroy. Each stage has an important role in ensuring infrastructure is managed safely and consistently.

What Will You Learn? #

Terraform has a structured, repeatable workflow. Understanding each stage — init, plan, apply, and destroy — along with the concepts of idempotency and drift detection, is the key to managing infrastructure with confidence.

Articles in This Section #

Article	Main Topic
Init	Project initialization, downloading providers and modules
Plan	Previewing changes before they’re applied — a critical stage for review
Apply	Applying changes to the actual infrastructure
Destroy	Removing all resources managed by Terraform
Execution Plan	Understanding the plan output details in depth
Idempotency	Running apply many times without unwanted changes
Drift Detection	Detecting changes made outside Terraform (manual changes)

Workflow Lifecycle #

flowchart TD
    A["<b>terraform init</b><br/>Project initialization"] --> B["<b>terraform plan</b><br/>Preview changes"]
    B --> C{"Review<br/>Plan"}
    C -->|"Approve"| D["<b>terraform apply</b><br/>Apply changes"]
    C -->|"Reject"| E["Edit<br/>Configuration"]
    E --> B
    D --> F{"Need<br/>Cleanup?"}
    F -->|"Yes"| G["<b>terraform destroy</b><br/>Remove all resources"]
    F -->|"No"| H["Monitoring &<br/>Drift Detection"]
    H --> I{"Drift<br/>Detected?"}
    I -->|"Yes"| E
    I -->|"No"| H

    style A fill:#e1f5fe
    style G fill:#ffebee
    style H fill:#c8e6c9

Stage Comparison #

flowchart LR
    subgraph Safe["Safe Operations"]
        init["init<br/>Doesn't change infra"]
        plan["plan<br/>Read-only, preview only"]
    end

    subgraph Destructive["Potentially Destructive"]
        apply["apply<br/>Creates/changes resources"]
        destroy["destroy<br/>Deletes resources"]
    end

    init --> plan
    plan --> apply
    apply --> destroy

    style Safe fill:#e8f5e9
    style Destructive fill:#fff3e0

Best Practice: Always Plan Before Apply #

# The correct workflow
terraform init        # Once only (or when there are provider/module changes)
terraform plan        # ALWAYS run this first
terraform apply       # Only after reviewing the plan
terraform destroy     # Only when you're sure you want to delete

After understanding the workflow, continue to the Concept section to go deeper into declarative concepts and state management.