--- layout: "docs" page_title: "Commands" sidebar_current: "docs-commands" description: |- Terraform is controlled via a very easy to use command-line interface (CLI). Terraform is only a single command-line application: terraform. This application then takes a subcommand such as "apply" or "plan". The complete list of subcommands is in the navigation to the left. --- # Terraform Commands (CLI) > For a hands-on tutorial, try the [Get Started](https://learn.hashicorp.com/terraform/getting-started/intro?utm_source=WEBSITE&utm_medium=WEB_IO&utm_offer=ARTICLE_PAGE&utm_content=DOCS) track on HashiCorp Learn. Terraform is controlled via a very easy to use command-line interface (CLI). Terraform is only a single command-line application: terraform. This application then takes a subcommand such as "apply" or "plan". The complete list of subcommands is in the navigation to the left. The terraform CLI is a well-behaved command line application. In erroneous cases, a non-zero exit status will be returned. It also responds to -h and --help as you'd most likely expect. To view a list of the available commands at any time, just run terraform with no arguments: ```text Usage: terraform [global options] [args] The available commands for execution are listed below. The most common, useful commands are shown first, followed by less common or more advanced commands. If you're just getting started with Terraform, stick with the common commands. For the other commands, please read the help and docs before usage. Common commands: apply Builds or changes infrastructure console Interactive console for Terraform interpolations destroy Destroy Terraform-managed infrastructure env Workspace management fmt Rewrites config files to canonical format get Download and install modules for the configuration graph Create a visual graph of Terraform resources import Import existing infrastructure into Terraform init Initialize a Terraform working directory login Obtain and save credentials for a remote host logout Remove locally-stored credentials for a remote host output Read an output from a state file plan Generate and show an execution plan providers Prints a tree of the providers used in the configuration refresh Update local state file against real resources show Inspect Terraform state or plan taint Manually mark a resource for recreation untaint Manually unmark a resource as tainted validate Validates the Terraform files version Prints the Terraform version workspace Workspace management All other commands: debug Debug output management (experimental) force-unlock Manually unlock the terraform state state Advanced state management Global options (use these before the subcommand, if any): -chdir=DIR Switch to a different working directory before executing the given subcommand. -help Show this help output, or the help for a specified subcommand. -version An alias for the "version" subcommand. ``` To get help for any specific command, use the -help option to the relevant subcommand. For example, to see help about the graph subcommand: ```text $ terraform graph -help Usage: terraform graph [options] PATH Outputs the visual graph of Terraform resources. If the path given is the path to a configuration, the dependency graph of the resources are shown. If the path is a plan file, then the dependency graph of the plan itself is shown. The graph is outputted in DOT format. The typical program that can read this format is GraphViz, but many web services are also available to read this format. ``` ## Switching working directory with `-chdir` The usual way to run Terraform is to first switch to the directory containing the `.tf` files for your root module (for example, using the `cd` command), so that Terraform will find those files automatically without any extra arguments. In some cases though — particularly when wrapping Terraform in automation scripts — it can be convenient to run Terraform from a different directory than the root module directory. To allow that, Terraform supports a global option `-chdir=...` which you can include before the name of the subcommand you intend to run: ``` terraform -chdir=environments/production apply ``` The `chdir` option instructs Terraform to change its working directory to the given directory before running the given subcommand. This means that any files that Terraform would normally read or write in the current working directory will be read or written in the given directory instead. There are two exceptions where Terraform will use the original working directory even when you specify `-chdir=...`: * Settings in the [CLI Configuration](cli-config.html) are not for a specific subcommand and Terraform processes them before acting on the `-chdir` option. * In case you need to use files from the original working directory as part of your configuration, a reference to `path.cwd` in the configuration will produce the original working directory instead of the overridden working directory. Use `path.root` to get the root module directory. ## Shell Tab-completion If you use either `bash` or `zsh` as your command shell, Terraform can provide tab-completion support for all command names and (at this time) _some_ command arguments. To add the necessary commands to your shell profile, run the following command: ```bash terraform -install-autocomplete ``` After installation, it is necessary to restart your shell or to re-read its profile script before completion will be activated. To uninstall the completion hook, assuming that it has not been modified manually in the shell profile, run the following command: ```bash terraform -uninstall-autocomplete ``` Currently not all of Terraform's subcommands have full tab-completion support for all arguments. We plan to improve tab-completion coverage over time. ## Upgrade and Security Bulletin Checks The Terraform CLI commands interact with the HashiCorp service [Checkpoint](https://checkpoint.hashicorp.com/) to check for the availability of new versions and for critical security bulletins about the current version. One place where the effect of this can be seen is in `terraform version`, where it is used by default to indicate in the output when a newer version is available. Only anonymous information, which cannot be used to identify the user or host, is sent to Checkpoint. An anonymous ID is sent which helps de-duplicate warning messages. Both the anonymous id and the use of checkpoint itself are completely optional and can be disabled. Checkpoint itself can be entirely disabled for all HashiCorp products by setting the environment variable `CHECKPOINT_DISABLE` to any non-empty value. Alternatively, settings in [the CLI configuration file](/docs/commands/cli-config.html) can be used to disable checkpoint features. The following checkpoint-related settings are supported in this file: * `disable_checkpoint` - set to `true` to disable checkpoint calls entirely. This is similar to the `CHECKPOINT_DISABLE` environment variable described above. * `disable_checkpoint_signature` - set to `true` to disable the use of an anonymous signature in checkpoint requests. This allows Terraform to check for security bulletins but does not send the anonymous signature in these requests. [The Checkpoint client code](https://github.com/hashicorp/go-checkpoint) used by Terraform is available for review by any interested party.