1. What is Terraform State?

• A file (terraform.tfstate) that stores the current status of your infrastructure.
• Terraform uses it to
  • Track resources
  • Know what exists
  • Plan changes
  • Prevent accidental recreation

2. Why Do We Need Remote State?

Local state issues:

• Can be deleted accidentally
• Not sharable in teams
• Risky: contains sensitive info
• No locking → two “terraform apply” = chaos 😭

Remote state solves this by giving:

• Central storage
• Collaboration
• Locking
• Encryption
• Versioning (optional)

3. AWS S3 as a Terraform Backend

S3 bucket = place to store terraform.tfstate