github.com/wikibal01/hashicorp-terraform@v0.11.12-beta1/website/docs/commands/state/index.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "commands-state" 3 page_title: "Command: state" 4 sidebar_current: "docs-state-index" 5 description: |- 6 The `terraform state` command is used for advanced state management. 7 --- 8 9 # State Command 10 11 The `terraform state` command is used for advanced state management. 12 As your Terraform usage becomes more advanced, there are some cases where 13 you may need to modify the [Terraform state](/docs/state/index.html). 14 Rather than modify the state directly, the `terraform state` commands can 15 be used in many cases instead. 16 17 This command is a nested subcommand, meaning that it has further subcommands. 18 These subcommands are listed to the left. 19 20 ## Usage 21 22 Usage: `terraform state <subcommand> [options] [args]` 23 24 Please click a subcommand to the left for more information. 25 26 ## Remote State 27 28 The Terraform state subcommands all work with remote state just as if it 29 was local state. Reads and writes may take longer than normal as each read 30 and each write do a full network roundtrip. Otherwise, backups are still 31 written to disk and the CLI usage is the same as if it were local state. 32 33 ## Backups 34 35 All `terraform state` subcommands that modify the state write backup 36 files. The path of these backup file can be controlled with `-backup`. 37 38 Subcommands that are read-only (such as [list](/docs/commands/state/list.html)) 39 do not write any backup files since they aren't modifying the state. 40 41 Note that backups for state modification _can not be disabled_. Due to 42 the sensitivity of the state file, Terraform forces every state modification 43 command to write a backup file. You'll have to remove these files manually 44 if you don't want to keep them around. 45 46 ## Command-Line Friendly 47 48 The output and command-line structure of the state subcommands is 49 designed to be easy to use with Unix command-line tools such as grep, awk, 50 etc. Consequently, the output is also friendly to the equivalent PowerShell 51 commands within Windows. 52 53 For advanced filtering and modification, we recommend piping Terraform 54 state subcommands together with other command line tools.