Which step in the provisioning workflow actually applies changes?

Which step in the provisioning workflow actually applies changes?

• A. Plan
• B. Init
• C. Validate
• D. Apply

Answer: (D)

In Terraform, the step that actually makes changes to your infrastructure is applying the planned changes. After you initialize and validate, Terraform generates a plan that outlines exactly what resources will be created, updated, or destroyed. That plan is a blueprint and by itself does not change anything. When you run the apply step, Terraform executes those actions against your providers, provisioning the real resources and updating the state file to reflect the new reality. If you use auto-approve, it proceeds without prompting. You can also apply a previously saved plan file, which will execute that exact plan. So, apply is the phase that performs the changes; plan is the preview, init prepares the working directory, and validate checks syntax without altering resources.

In Terraform, the step that actually makes changes to your infrastructure is applying the planned changes. After you initialize and validate, Terraform generates a plan that outlines exactly what resources will be created, updated, or destroyed. That plan is a blueprint and by itself does not change anything. When you run the apply step, Terraform executes those actions against your providers, provisioning the real resources and updating the state file to reflect the new reality. If you use auto-approve, it proceeds without prompting. You can also apply a previously saved plan file, which will execute that exact plan. So, apply is the phase that performs the changes; plan is the preview, init prepares the working directory, and validate checks syntax without altering resources.