terraform-apply

Apply Terraform infrastructure changes

TLDR

Apply changes with interactive approval

$ terraform apply

Apply a saved plan file

$ terraform apply [plan.tfplan]

Apply without confirmation prompt

$ terraform apply -auto-approve

Apply with a variable

$ terraform apply -var="[key]=[value]"

Replace a specific resource

$ terraform apply -replace=[resource]

Apply with limited parallelism

$ terraform apply -parallelism=[n]

SYNOPSIS

terraform apply [options] [plan file]

terraform apply executes the actions proposed in a Terraform plan to create, update, or destroy infrastructure. When run without a saved plan file, it automatically creates a new plan, prompts for approval, and then performs the proposed changes. When given a saved plan file (from terraform plan -out), it executes the plan without prompting.
The command compares the desired state defined in configuration files against the current state and determines the minimal set of changes needed. It supports all planning modes and options from terraform plan when no saved plan is provided.

PARAMETERS

-auto-approve

Skip interactive approval of the plan before applying.

-var name=value

Set an input variable value. Can be specified multiple times.

-var-file file

Load variable values from a file.

-replace resource

Force replacement of a specific resource instance.

-target resource

Limit the operation to a specific resource and its dependencies.

-parallelism n

Limit the number of concurrent operations. Default is 10.

-compact-warnings

Show warning messages in compact form with only the summary.

-input true|false

Enable or disable interactive prompts. Default is true.

-lock true|false

Lock the state file during operations. Default is true.

-lock-timeout duration

Duration to retry acquiring a state lock. Default is 0s.

-no-color

Disable color codes in the output.

-json

Enable machine-readable JSON output. Implies -input=false.

-destroy

Create a plan to destroy all resources, then apply it.

-refresh-only

Only update the state to match remote objects.

CAVEATS

Running terraform apply without -auto-approve in non-interactive environments (CI/CD) will hang waiting for input. Use -auto-approve or pipe a saved plan file for automation. State locking should not be disabled in team environments as it risks state corruption from concurrent operations.

HISTORY

Terraform was created by Mitchell Hashimoto and released by HashiCorp in 2014. It pioneered the infrastructure-as-code approach using a declarative configuration language (HCL). The apply command has been a core part of the plan-then-apply workflow since the initial release, with JSON output support added in later versions.