Terraform also needs to detect when a resource is removed from a template. Having a state file makes this easy (if something is in the state file and not the te

Terraform also needs to detect when a resource is removed from a template. Having a state file makes this easy (if something is in the state file and not the template, delete it); otherwise, you have to scan your whole infrastructure (and still risk deleting something that was never managed by terraform in the first place).