Which action does not affect the Terraform state?

Which action does not affect the Terraform state?

• A. Running terraform fmt
• B. Deploying a new resource
• C. Changing a resource attribute in config
• D. Running terraform plan

Answer: (A)

Formatting the configuration is the action that never touches Terraform’s state. The state is a record of the real infrastructure Terraform manages, stored in a state file. Running the formatting command only adjusts the text in your configuration files, not any resources, and it does not read or write the state. It doesn’t interact with providers, plans, or resource changes, so the state remains exactly as it is. In contrast, adding a new resource updates the state to include that resource, changing or updating attributes in the config leads to planned and applied changes that modify the state, and running a plan only shows what would change without actually applying anything to reach that desired state.

Formatting the configuration is the action that never touches Terraform’s state. The state is a record of the real infrastructure Terraform manages, stored in a state file. Running the formatting command only adjusts the text in your configuration files, not any resources, and it does not read or write the state. It doesn’t interact with providers, plans, or resource changes, so the state remains exactly as it is. In contrast, adding a new resource updates the state to include that resource, changing or updating attributes in the config leads to planned and applied changes that modify the state, and running a plan only shows what would change without actually applying anything to reach that desired state.