terraform state commands

The terraform state commands enable advanced state management.

Introduction

You can use the terraform state commands to modify the Terraform state instead modifying the state directly.

Usage

Usage: terraform state <subcommand> [options] [args]

Refer to the following subcommands for additional information:

Remote State

The Terraform state subcommands all work with remote state just as if it was local state. Reads and writes may take longer than normal as each read and each write do a full network roundtrip. Otherwise, backups are still written to disk and the CLI usage is the same as if it were local state.

Backups

All terraform state subcommands that modify the state write backup files. The path of these backup file can be controlled with -backup.

Subcommands that are read-only (such as list) do not write any backup files since they aren't modifying the state.

Note that backups for state modification can not be disabled. Due to the sensitivity of the state file, Terraform forces every state modification command to write a backup file. You'll have to remove these files manually if you don't want to keep them around.

Command-Line Friendly

The output and command-line structure of the state subcommands is designed to be usable with Unix command-line tools such as grep, awk, and similar PowerShell commands.

For advanced filtering and modification, we recommend piping Terraform state subcommands together with other command line tools.