Surgical targeted plan

Limit plan to one address; note: -target is an escape hatch, can mask drift

terraform plan -target='module.db.aws_db_instance.main'
tool
terraform43 commands
tags
terraformtroubleshootingdebug

More terraform commands

  • Refresh-only plan (detect drift)
    terraform plan -refresh-only

    Sync state to real infra without proposing changes; surfaces out-of-band drift

  • Migrate backend on init
    terraform init -migrate-state -backend-config=backend.hcl

    Move state to a new backend; use -reconfigure to skip migration and reset

  • Query outputs with jq
    terraform output -json | jq -r '.endpoints.value[]'

    Pipe machine-readable outputs into jq for scripting and downstream wiring

  • Trace plan with TF_LOG
    TF_LOG=DEBUG TF_LOG_PATH=tf.log terraform plan

    Capture provider/API debug to a file; use TRACE for the most verbose level

  • Plan with var file
    terraform plan -var-file=prod.tfvars -out=plan.tfplan

    Show changes; save plan artifact for CI gating

all 43 terraform commands