Terraform initialization failure

What this failure means

terraform init failed before any plan or apply could begin. Initialization downloads providers and configures the backend, so errors here block every later Terraform step.

Symptoms

Faultline looks for one or more of these log fragments:

Error: Failed to install provider
Error: Unsatisfied provider requirements
Error: Could not load plugin
Could not retrieve the list of available versions
Error: Backend configuration changed
Error: No configuration files
Failed to query available provider packages
Could not resolve provider

Diagnosis

terraform init failed before any plan or apply could begin. Initialization downloads providers and configures the backend, so errors here block every later Terraform step.

Fix steps

1. Check the provider version constraints in required_providers against what is available at registry.terraform.io.
2. For backend failures, verify that the state bucket or container exists and the CI service account has read and write permission on it.
3. Run terraform init -upgrade locally to refresh the provider lock file.
4. Check that the Terraform version in CI satisfies the required_version constraint in your Terraform configuration.

Validation

• terraform init completes successfully in the same workspace.
• terraform version matches the expected required_version contract.

Why it matters

Init failures occur when a required provider version cannot be found in the registry, the backend bucket or container is missing or inaccessible, provider constraints conflict, or the Terraform version in CI does not satisfy required_version.

Prevention

• Commit .terraform.lock.hcl to source control so provider versions stay pinned and consistent across environments.
• Use a remote backend from the start rather than local state in shared pipelines.
• Test terraform init in a dedicated validation step before plan or apply.

Try it locally

terraform init
terraform version

How Faultline detects it

Use faultline explain terraform-init to see the full playbook.

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain terraform-init

Generated from playbooks/bundled/log/deploy/terraform-init.yaml. Do not edit directly.