Terraform State Management — Vocabulary and Language

Terraform state (terraform.tfstate) maps Terraform resources to real-world infrastructure. Terraform uses state to determine what changes need to be made to match the configuration.

A remote state backend stores state in a shared, remote location with locking to prevent concurrent modifications. Essential for team workflows.

State drift occurs when someone modifies infrastructure manually (e.g., via the AWS console) without going through Terraform, causing the state to no longer match reality.

terraform import adds an existing infrastructure resource to Terraform state, allowing it to be managed going forward without recreating it.

State locking prevents two users or automation processes from running terraform apply simultaneously, which could corrupt the state file.