Managing Terraform State in Azure

Terraform’s `.tfstate` file is gold. If it’s lost or corrupted, Terraform cannot track what resources exist. You **must** store state remotely with locking.

Azure Backend Configuration

terraform {
  backend "azurerm" {
    resource_group_name  = "tfstate-rg"
    storage_account_name = "tfstateacc"
    container_name       = "tfstate"
    key                  = "prod.terraform.tfstate"
  }
}

State Locking

Azure Blob’s native lease mechanism prevents concurrent writes.

Key Takeaways

• Never commit `.tfstate` to Git.
• Enable **soft delete** on the storage account to recover corrupted state.
• Use separate state files per environment (dev/prod).