An apply planned to destroy and recreate the production database. Which lifecycle arguments belonged on that resource?

Three lifecycle arguments influence replacement and drift handling: create_before_destroy, prevent_destroy, and ignore_changes. Each earns its place through an incident story, and each has a failure mode interviewers wait to hear you name.

Updated Sep 2026 · Grounded in researched DevOps, SRE and platform engineering interview loops, written to a senior-engineer editorial bar, and never padded to hit a word count.

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Next in this trackA module needs an AMI ID and three subnet IDs. Do you hardcode them, accept variables, or look them up?Next in this trackThirty teams ship from one Terraform repository. How do you cut it into stacks so one bad apply cannot touch everyone?Next in this trackPlans get scanned by policy-as-code before merge. Which rules earn a hard block, and who can waive one?

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