HashiCorp Updated Terraform-Associate-004 Exam Questions and Answers by mira

Sentinel policies are checked after the plan stage of a Terraform run, but before it can be confirmed or the terraform apply is executed3. This allows you to enforce rules on your infrastructure before it is created or modified.

Rationale for Correct Answer:

A: The plan is stale because state changed after it was created. The correct fix is to recreate the plan against the latest state and apply that new plan.

B: Running terraform apply without specifying the old plan causes Terraform to re-plan using the current state and configuration, then apply the resulting changes.

Analysis of Incorrect Options (Distractors):

C: -lock=false disables locking; it does not make an old plan valid and is unsafe in team environments.

D: -refresh-only changes what’s recorded in state (when applied) but does not “unstale” an existing saved plan file.

E: terraform state push is for advanced/manual state management and does not update a saved plan file; using it here is inappropriate and risky.

Key Concept: Saved plans are tied to a specific state snapshot; if state changes, you must re-plan.

The correct answer is D because marking a Terraform variable as sensitive does not, by itself, keep the value out of Terraform configuration files. The sensitive argument only changes how Terraform displays the value in CLI output, plans, and logs. It does not supply the value from outside the configuration, and it does not prevent sensitive values from being stored in state when those values are used by resources or outputs. Passing values through environment variables, command-line -var arguments, or secure external credential files can help avoid hardcoding secrets directly in .tf files. In Terraform workflows, sensitive values should be kept out of version-controlled configuration and handled through secure runtime mechanisms such as environment variables, HCP Terraform sensitive variables, or Vault.

The terraform state list command lists all resources that are managed by Terraform in the current state file1. The terraform state show command shows the attributes of a single resource in the state file2. By using these two commands, you can compare the VM IDs in your list with the ones in the state file and identify which one is managed by Terraform.