Is `terraform init` compulsory before every `terraform plan`?

Question

Just wondering if terraform init is compulsory before every terraform plan?

i.e. if I've already done a terraform init but are about to do a second terraform plan based on some changed Terraform code would you need to do a second terraform init?

Answer 1

It depends.

Depending on exactly what the Terraform code is you've changed, you may need to re-run init. For instance, if you've made changes to a configured backend, you'll need to rerun terraform init to re-initialise with those changes. If the changes are to non-terraform configuration parts of your script, terraform plan and terraform apply should be fine to use by themselves.

One further note is that if you're using modules, and you make a change in a module, you will need to re-run terraform get -update to get those changes before running plan or apply.

Answer 2

Agree with all the above answers, but something to add here is that it is safe to run terraform init many times even if nothing changed, its not going to affect anything.