github.com/hobbeswalsh/terraform@v0.3.7-0.20150619183303-ad17cf55a0fa/website/source/intro/getting-started/destroy.html.md (about)

     1  ---
     2  layout: "intro"
     3  page_title: "Destroy Infrastructure"
     4  sidebar_current: "gettingstarted-destroy"
     5  description: |-
     6    We've now seen how to build and change infrastructure. Before we move on to creating multiple resources and showing resource dependencies, we're going to go over how to completely destroy the Terraform-managed infrastructure.
     7  ---
     8  
     9  # Destroy Infrastructure
    10  
    11  We've now seen how to build and change infrastructure. Before we
    12  move on to creating multiple resources and showing resource
    13  dependencies, we're going to go over how to completely destroy
    14  the Terraform-managed infrastructure.
    15  
    16  Destroying your infrastructure is a rare event in production
    17  environments. But if you're using Terraform to spin up multiple
    18  environments such as development, test, QA environments, then
    19  destroying is a useful action.
    20  
    21  ## Plan
    22  
    23  Before destroying our infrastructure, we can use the plan command
    24  to see what resources Terraform will destroy.
    25  
    26  ```
    27  $ terraform plan -destroy
    28  ...
    29  
    30  - aws_instance.example
    31  ```
    32  
    33  With the `-destroy` flag, we're asking Terraform to plan a destroy,
    34  where all resources under Terraform management are destroyed. You can
    35  use this output to verify exactly what resources Terraform is managing
    36  and will destroy.
    37  
    38  ## Destroy
    39  
    40  Let's destroy the infrastructure now:
    41  
    42  ```
    43  $ terraform destroy
    44  aws_instance.example: Destroying...
    45  
    46  Apply complete! Resources: 0 added, 0 changed, 1 destroyed.
    47  
    48  ...
    49  ```
    50  
    51  The `terraform destroy` command should ask you to verify that you
    52  really want to destroy the infrastructure. Terraform only accepts the
    53  literal "yes" as an answer as a safety mechanism. Once entered, Terraform
    54  will go through and destroy the infrastructure.
    55  
    56  Just like with `apply`, Terraform is smart enough to determine what order
    57  things should be destroyed. In our case, we only had one resource, so there
    58  wasn't any ordering necessary. But in more complicated cases with multiple
    59  resources, Terraform will destroy in the proper order.
    60  
    61  ## Next
    62  
    63  You now know how to create, modify, and destroy infrastructure
    64  from a local machine.
    65  
    66  Next, we learn how to [use Terraform remotely and the associated benefits](/intro/getting-started/remote.html).