Which command would bring existing infrastructure under Terraform management?

Which command would bring existing infrastructure under Terraform management?

• A. terraform plan
• B. terraform apply
• C. terraform import
• D. terraform init

Answer: (C)

Bringing existing infrastructure under Terraform management requires telling Terraform about resources that already exist so it can track them in its state. The import command does exactly this: it reads a real resource (for example, an AWS EC2 instance or a GCP VM) and records it in Terraform’s state, linking it to a resource name you’ll have in your configuration. Importing doesn’t create anything new; it simply adopts the existing resource so Terraform can manage future changes. After importing, you should have a matching resource block in your configuration that describes the desired settings, and then plan and apply can reconcile any drift. Other commands don’t bring resources into management. Initializing prepares the working directory and installs providers. Plan shows what would change based on the current configuration. Apply executes those changes to reach the desired state. Import is the step that transitions existing infrastructure into Terraform’s manage-and-track lifecycle.

Bringing existing infrastructure under Terraform management requires telling Terraform about resources that already exist so it can track them in its state. The import command does exactly this: it reads a real resource (for example, an AWS EC2 instance or a GCP VM) and records it in Terraform’s state, linking it to a resource name you’ll have in your configuration. Importing doesn’t create anything new; it simply adopts the existing resource so Terraform can manage future changes. After importing, you should have a matching resource block in your configuration that describes the desired settings, and then plan and apply can reconcile any drift.

Other commands don’t bring resources into management. Initializing prepares the working directory and installs providers. Plan shows what would change based on the current configuration. Apply executes those changes to reach the desired state. Import is the step that transitions existing infrastructure into Terraform’s manage-and-track lifecycle.