---
description: >-
  The tofu apply command executes the actions proposed in a OpenTofu plan
  to create, update, or destroy infrastructure.
---

# Command: apply

The `tofu apply` command executes the actions proposed in a OpenTofu
plan.

## Usage

Usage: `tofu apply [options] [plan file]`



### Automatic Plan Mode

When you run `tofu apply` without passing a saved plan file, OpenTofu automatically creates a new execution plan as if you had run [`tofu plan`](plan.mdx), prompts you to approve that plan, and takes the indicated actions. You can use all of the [planning modes](plan.mdx#planning-modes) and
[planning options](plan.mdx#planning-options) to customize how OpenTofu will create the plan.

You can pass the `-auto-approve` option to instruct OpenTofu to apply the plan without asking for confirmation.

:::danger Warning
If you use `-auto-approve`, we recommend making sure that no one can change your infrastructure outside of your OpenTofu workflow. This minimizes the risk of unpredictable changes and configuration drift.
:::

### Saved Plan Mode

When you pass a [saved plan file](plan.mdx#out-filename) to `tofu apply`, OpenTofu takes the actions in the saved plan without prompting you for confirmation. You may want to use this two-step workflow when running OpenTofu in automation.

Use [`tofu show`](show.mdx) to inspect a saved plan file before applying it.

When using a saved plan, you cannot specify any additional planning modes or options. These options only affect OpenTofu's decisions about which
actions to take, and the plan file contains the final results of those
decisions.

### Plan Options

Without a saved plan file, `tofu apply` supports all planning modes and planning options available for `tofu plan`.

- **[Planning Modes](plan.mdx#planning-modes):** These include `-destroy`, which creates a plan to destroy all remote objects, and `-refresh-only`, which creates a plan to update OpenTofu state and root module output values.
- **[Planning Options](plan.mdx#planning-options):** These include specifying which resource instances OpenTofu should replace, setting OpenTofu input variables, etc.

### Apply Options

The following options change how the apply command executes and reports on the apply operation.

- `-auto-approve` - Skips interactive approval of plan before applying. This
  option is ignored when you pass a previously-saved plan file, because
  OpenTofu considers you passing the plan file as the approval and so
  will never prompt in that case.

- `-compact-warnings` - Shows any warning messages in a compact form which
  includes only the summary messages, unless the warnings are accompanied by
  at least one error and thus the warning text might be useful context for
  the errors.

- `-input=false` - Disables all of OpenTofu's interactive prompts. Note that
  this also prevents OpenTofu from prompting for interactive approval of a
  plan, so OpenTofu will conservatively assume that you do not wish to
  apply the plan, causing the operation to fail.

- `-json` - Enables the [machine readable JSON UI](../../internals/machine-readable-ui.mdx) output.
  This implies `-input=false`, so the configuration must have no unassigned
  variable values to continue. To enable this flag, you must also either enable
  the `-auto-approve` flag or specify a previously-saved plan.

- `-lock=false` - Don't hold a state lock during the operation. This is
  dangerous if others might concurrently run commands against the same
  workspace.

- `-lock-timeout=DURATION` - Unless locking is disabled with `-lock=false`,
  instructs OpenTofu to retry acquiring a lock for a period of time before
  returning an error. The duration syntax is a number followed by a time
  unit letter, such as "3s" for three seconds.

- `-no-color` - Disables terminal formatting sequences in the output. Use this
  if you are running OpenTofu in a context where its output will be
  rendered by a system that cannot interpret terminal formatting.

- `-parallelism=n` - Limit the number of concurrent operation as OpenTofu
  [walks the graph](../../internals/graph.mdx#walking-the-graph). Defaults to
  10\.

- All [planning modes](plan.mdx#planning-modes) and
[planning options](plan.mdx#planning-options) for
`tofu plan` - Customize how OpenTofu will create the plan. Only available when you run `tofu apply` without a saved plan file.

For configurations using
[the `local` backend](../../language/settings/backends/local.mdx) only,
`tofu apply` also accepts the legacy options
[`-state`, `-state-out`, and `-backup`](../../language/settings/backends/local.mdx#command-line-arguments).

### Environment variables

You can further customize behavior of `apply` command by using [environment variables](../config/environment-variables.mdx).  For example, the [TF_STATE_PERSIST_INTERVAL](../config/environment-variables.mdx#tf_state_persist_interval) environment variable allows to specify the interval between state persistence.

## Passing a Different Configuration Directory

If your workflow relies on overriding the root module directory, use
[the `-chdir` global option](index.mdx#switching-working-directory-with-chdir)
instead, which works across all commands and makes OpenTofu consistently look
in the given directory for all files it would normally read or write in the
current working directory.
