State & Outside-the-Workflow

terraform import brings existing infrastructure that was created outside of Terraform (manually, by another tool, or out-of-band) under Terraform management by recording it in state, without destroying and recreating the real resource.

terraform import ADDRESS ID, where ADDRESS is the Terraform resource address in your configuration and ID is the provider-specific real-world identifier. Example: terraform import aws_instance.web i-0abc123.

No. The classic CLI import command only writes the resource into state. You must manually author the matching resource block yourself. After import, a plan with correct config should show no changes.

Run terraform plan after importing. If your hand-written resource block matches the imported real resource, the plan should report no changes. Differences indicate your config does not yet match reality.

The import block is a declarative, version-controllable way to import resources. It specifies id (the real-world ID) and to (the target resource address). It is processed during plan/apply and can be reviewed in a PR, unlike the imperative CLI command.

When you run terraform plan -generate-config-out=FILE with import blocks present, Terraform scaffolds HCL configuration for the imported resources into the named file, giving you a starting point you can refine.