What is the primary purpose of terraform validate?

What is the primary purpose of terraform validate?

• A. Validate that state matches infrastructure
• B. Validate your code syntax before planning
• C. Validate infrastructure changes
• D. Validate remote state

Answer: (B)

Terraform validate checks the syntax and basic internal consistency of your Terraform configuration before planning. It reads the configuration files in your working directory and ensures the HCL is well-formed, expressions compile, and references to variables, modules, and providers are structurally valid. This is an offline check that doesn’t reach out to cloud providers or rely on existing infrastructure, so you can catch typos and misconfigurations early. Because of that, its primary purpose is to validate your code syntax before planning or applying changes. It does not verify that the remote state matches the real infrastructure, nor does it validate the exact changes Terraform would apply to resources, and it doesn’t validate remote state contents. To see what would change in your infrastructure, you’d run a plan, and to apply those changes you’d run apply.

Terraform validate checks the syntax and basic internal consistency of your Terraform configuration before planning. It reads the configuration files in your working directory and ensures the HCL is well-formed, expressions compile, and references to variables, modules, and providers are structurally valid. This is an offline check that doesn’t reach out to cloud providers or rely on existing infrastructure, so you can catch typos and misconfigurations early. Because of that, its primary purpose is to validate your code syntax before planning or applying changes. It does not verify that the remote state matches the real infrastructure, nor does it validate the exact changes Terraform would apply to resources, and it doesn’t validate remote state contents. To see what would change in your infrastructure, you’d run a plan, and to apply those changes you’d run apply.