The deletion trap

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The deletion trap

Delete the state file and the real resources don't go anywhere. Only Terraform's memory of them does:

  # demo_network.main will be created
  + resource "demo_network" "main" {
  …
  # demo_server.web will be created
  + resource "demo_server" "web" {
  …
Plan: 2 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

From Terraform's point of view, nothing exists, so it plans to create everything. If you applied this, you'd get a second network and a second server next to the originals: duplicates you pay for, and originals Terraform no longer manages at all. Where names must be unique, the apply fails halfway instead.

State files get lost the boring ways: a laptop dies, someone cleans up a directory, terraform.tfstate was in .gitignore and the only copy was local. That's one reason real teams keep state remotely, versioned, and never on one machine.

Your task

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Now the dangerous one. Click Delete the state file, then run plan. Real Infrastructure still exists — but Terraform's memory is gone, so it wants to create both resources again. That's the duplication trap. Then answer the questions below.

The server still exists. Why does plan want to create it again?With no state, Terraform has no record that it already made itDeleting state also deleted the serverTerraform recreates everything after any error

If you applied that plan, what would happen?Terraform would reconnect to the existing resourcesYou'd get duplicates, and the originals would be left unmanagedNothing: apply skips resources that already exist

Your answers are checked when you run this step.

The deletion trap