Terraform CLI Cheatsheet

Core Workflow

# Initialize a working directory
terraform init

# Preview execution plan
terraform plan

# Apply changes
terraform apply

# Destroy infrastructure
terraform destroy

State Management

# List state resources
terraform state list

# Show a specific resource state
terraform state show aws_instance.web

# Move resource to new address
terraform state mv aws_instance.old aws_instance.new

# Remove resource from state (without destroying)
terraform state rm aws_instance.web

# Pull remote state to stdout
terraform state pull

# Push local state to remote backend
terraform state push

Workspaces

# List workspaces
terraform workspace list

# Create new workspace
terraform workspace new staging

# Switch workspace
terraform workspace select production

# Show current workspace
terraform workspace show

Import & Output

# Import existing resource into state
terraform import aws_instance.web i-abc123

# Show output values
terraform output
terraform output vpc_id

# Format HCL files
terraform fmt
terraform fmt -recursive

# Validate configuration
terraform validate

Planning Options

# Save plan to file
terraform plan -out=tfplan

# Apply saved plan
terraform apply tfplan

# Plan with var file
terraform plan -var-file=prod.tfvars

# Target specific resource
terraform plan -target=aws_instance.web

# Plan destroy
terraform plan -destroy

Modules

# Download modules
terraform get

# Update modules
terraform get -update

# Force module re-download on init
terraform init -upgrade

Debugging

# Enable debug logging
TF_LOG=DEBUG terraform plan

# Enable trace logging
TF_LOG=TRACE terraform apply

# Log to file
TF_LOG=DEBUG TF_LOG_PATH=./debug.log terraform plan

Useful Flags

Backend Configuration

# S3 backend example
terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket         = "my-tfstate"
    key            = "prod/terraform.tfstate"
    region         = "us-east-1"
    dynamodb_table = "terraform-locks"
    encrypt        = true
  }
}

Variable Precedence (lowest to highest)

1. Default values in code
2. terraform.tfvars
3. *.auto.tfvars
4. -var-file flag
5. -var flag
6. Environment variables TF_VAR_*