Option -refresh=false seems not to be working anymore

[sdickhoven]

Terraform Version

$ terraform version
Terraform v0.14.2
+ provider registry.terraform.io/cloudflare/cloudflare v2.14.0
+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/external v2.0.0
+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/null v2.1.2

Terraform Configuration Files

n/a

Debug Output

$ terraform apply -refresh=false
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
...

$ env | grep TF_CLI_ARGS
TF_CLI_ARGS_apply=-refresh=false
$ terraform apply
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
...

$ TF_CLI_ARGS_apply="-refresh=false" terraform apply
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
<redacted>: Refreshing state... [id=<redacted>]
...

Crash Output

n/a

Expected Behavior

When option -refresh=false is used or env var TF_CLI_ARGS (or TF_CLI_ARGS_apply) is set to -refresh=false then terraform should not do a refresh when running terraform apply.

Actual Behavior

Terraform does a full-on state refresh.

Steps to Reproduce

$ terraform apply -refresh=false

Additional Context

We have some large configs (e.g. DNS, GitHub) that take 1hr+ to refresh state. We only do refreshes on those occasionally. So not having -refresh=false is kind of a show stopper for us.

References

n/a

[sdickhoven]

another use case for -refresh=false is config change validation for users who are not allowed to interact with the provider api (but do have read-only access to the terraform state file).

[jbardin]

Thanks @sdickhoven!

Looks like since the primary workflow is to apply from a plan, the -refresh flag for apply was overlooked. The flag does work correctly with terraform plan.

Just a note about the second use-case you've presented; providers may need to make API calls to create a plan as well, so even without refresh, there is no way to guarantee that users can always create a plan successfully without API access.

Thanks!

[ghost]

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