Terraform Plan Summarizer

About this tool

This tool takes raw terraform plan output and reduces it to a count and a list for each action: resources to add, change, replace and destroy. It reads the resource header lines Terraform prints along with the final Plan summary line, and groups the resource addresses under each heading.

A plan for a non-trivial stack runs to thousands of lines of attribute diffs, and the destructive changes are buried in the middle. What matters at review is short: what is being replaced, and what is being destroyed. Parsing happens entirely in your browser and no plan output is uploaded, which matters because plan text often contains resource names, account identifiers and attribute values you would rather not hand to a third party. Where plan review is a bottleneck, our infrastructure automation & DevOps team automates it.

How to use it

The four counters mirror Terraform's own summary line; the lists below name the affected resources.

• Add — new resources. Check for anything unintended, such as a resource recreated because a module source changed.
• Change — updated in place. The resource keeps its identity and its data.
• Replace — destroyed and recreated. Scrutinise this list: it means data loss for stateful resources and a new identifier for everything else.
• Destroy — removed outright. Confirm every entry is deliberate before you apply.
• Compare the counters against the Plan line at the bottom of your paste. If they disagree, the output was truncated.

Common questions

Is my plan output uploaded anywhere?

No. The page parses the text in your browser and makes no network request with it. As general discipline, still avoid pasting plans containing real secrets into any web tool, and prefer output where sensitive values are redacted.

What does must be replaced actually mean?

Terraform cannot apply the change in place, so it destroys the existing resource and creates a new one. For a database or a volume, that is destructive. The full plan marks the responsible attribute with a forces replacement comment; find it before approving.

Why did it find no actions in my paste?

The tool looks for Terraform's standard human-readable plan lines. JSON output from terraform show, or a partial copy, will not match. Paste the complete output of terraform plan as it appears in your terminal.