How to revert Terraform changes?

Reverting Terraform plan changes depends on what stage you are at: before applying, after applying, or after partially applying. Here’s the clear breakdown.

✅ 1. If you have NOT applied yet (terraform apply not run)

Good news — nothing has changed in real infrastructure yet.

To revert:

Option A — Discard local changes

If you changed .tf files and no longer want those changes:

git checkout -- .

(or whatever version-control method you use).

Then run:

terraform plan

You should now see no changes.

✅ 2. If you already APPLIED the plan (terraform apply completed)

Terraform itself cannot "undo" changes automatically. To revert:

Option A — Restore previous configuration and re-apply

1. Check out the older version from Git (or backup):

git checkout <previous_commit>

2. Apply again:

terraform apply

Terraform will then produce a new plan that “undoes” whatever the last apply changed.

✅ 3. If you applied changes but want to roll back ONLY some resources

You must restore the previous desired state in your .tf files.

Terraform will then:

• Delete resources that should not exist
• Recreate resources with old attributes
• Update resources to previous settings

There is no single rollback command — reversion is achieved by re-applying the old configuration.

✅ 4. If apply FAILED halfway (partial apply)

Terraform state may contain partially created resources.

To revert:

Option A — Fix configuration, then apply again

Terraform will detect drift and correct it.

Option B — Manually remove bad resources from state

Use only if necessary:

terraform state rm <resource>

Then re-run:

terraform apply

❌ What does NOT exist

Terraform has no:

• terraform undo
• terraform rollback
• automatic revert mechanism

Everything is done by changing code back and running apply.

📌 If you want truly reversible deployments

Use:

• Git versioning for .tf files
• Terraform workspaces (sometimes)
• Terragrunt with versioned configurations
• CI pipelines that apply from tagged releases