How can I delete Terraform assets and statefiles created in a pipeline using the remote GitLab backend?

Question

Currently I have a detached pipeline which uses the Terraform with the remote Gitlab backend.

How can I after the pipeline has run delete BOTH the assets created and the statefile?

Answer 1

Currently Terraform can NOT delete statefiles stored in remote backends. The feature request for this is 34172.

Now what you have to do is run

• gitlab terraform destroy to have terraform remove all assets in the state file,
• Either use the Gitlab REST API with Curl, or the GraphAPI to accomplish the deletion of the statefile. This process is documented on Gitlab.com https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/infrastructure/iac/terraform_state.html#remove-a-state-file-by-using-the-api