Introduction of Terraform State File

The Terraform state file serves as a crucial bridge between the declarative configuration in the Terraform code and the resources deployed in the infrastructure. It maintains a detailed record of all the resources managed by Terraform, including their attributes, dependencies, and metadata. This information enables Terraform to perform intelligent operations such as incremental updates and resource tracking across multiple executions.

When Terraform runs, it compares the desired state defined in the configuration files to the current state recorded in the state file. This comparison allows Terraform to determine which changes must be applied to align the infrastructure with the desired configuration.