Which statement about Terraform's interaction with plan output when applying is correct?

Which statement about Terraform's interaction with plan output when applying is correct?

• A. It always refreshes the plan output before applying
• B. It never refreshes the plan output
• C. By default, it does not refresh your state file to reflect current infrastructure configuration
• D. It only refreshes when the provider supports it

Answer: (C)

The important idea is that a plan captures a set of changes based on the state as it existed when the plan was created, and applying that plan executes those changes without re-running a full refresh of the live infrastructure. By default, applying uses the saved plan as-is, so the state file isn’t refreshed during the apply step to reflect any drift that happened after the plan was generated. If you want the plan to reflect the latest live state, you would re-run plan (which refreshes by default) and then apply that new plan. This behavior isn’t about provider support and isn’t guaranteed to refresh on every apply.

The important idea is that a plan captures a set of changes based on the state as it existed when the plan was created, and applying that plan executes those changes without re-running a full refresh of the live infrastructure. By default, applying uses the saved plan as-is, so the state file isn’t refreshed during the apply step to reflect any drift that happened after the plan was generated. If you want the plan to reflect the latest live state, you would re-run plan (which refreshes by default) and then apply that new plan. This behavior isn’t about provider support and isn’t guaranteed to refresh on every apply.