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Terraform Associate (004) · Free practice question 10 of 12

Provisioners as a last resort

An engineer at Gorsedd Media plans to use a remote-exec provisioner on every virtual machine to install packages after creation. What is HashiCorp's guidance?

  1. A.Provisioners are the recommended way to configure every resource
  2. B.Provisioners are a last resort; prefer options such as provider-supported user data, cloud-init or prebuilt machine images
  3. C.Provisioners run before the resource is created
  4. D.Provisioners are tracked in state so Terraform reruns them when the script changes
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Correct answer: B. Provisioners are a last resort; prefer options such as provider-supported user data, cloud-init or prebuilt machine images

Why: HashiCorp describes provisioners as a last resort, because Terraform cannot model their actions in a plan; built-in mechanisms such as user data, cloud-init or images built with tools like Packer are preferred. Creation-time provisioners run after the resource is created. Terraform does not rerun them when a script changes unless the resource is replaced.

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