If a Terraform creation-time provisioner fails, what will occur by default?

If a Terraform creation-time provisioner fails, what will occur by default?

• A. The resource will not be affected, but the provisioner will need to be applied again
• B. The resource will be destroyed
• C. The resource will be tainted
• D. Nothing, provisioners will not show errors in the command line

Answer: (C)

When a creation-time provisioner runs as part of creating a resource, Terraform expects it to succeed. If the provisioner fails, Terraform marks the resource as tainted. This taint signals that the resource should be destroyed and recreated on the next apply to re-run the provisioning and bring the resource to the desired state. So the immediate by-default effect is that the resource becomes tainted, with the next apply performing a destroy-and-recreate cycle to retry provisioning.

When a creation-time provisioner runs as part of creating a resource, Terraform expects it to succeed. If the provisioner fails, Terraform marks the resource as tainted. This taint signals that the resource should be destroyed and recreated on the next apply to re-run the provisioning and bring the resource to the desired state. So the immediate by-default effect is that the resource becomes tainted, with the next apply performing a destroy-and-recreate cycle to retry provisioning.