Question

A DevOps team stores their Terraform state file in a shared cloud object storage bucket. Two engineers run 'terraform apply' at nearly the same time from their laptops, and afterward the team discovers the state file no longer matches the deployed resources, causing orphaned infrastructure. Which practice would most directly prevent this problem in the future?

Accepted Answer

Enable remote state locking using a backend that supports a lock mechanism (such as a DynamoDB table or equivalent)

Answer

Increase the versioning retention period on the object storage bucket holding the state file

Answer

Have each engineer keep a local copy of the state file on their laptop

Answer

Run 'terraform plan' more frequently before applying changes