Terraform State Recovery Skill

Overview

When Kubernetes clusters are recreated (e.g., Rackspace Spot cloudspace deleted and recreated), Terraform state contains references to resources that no longer exist. This causes apply failures that require manual state cleanup.

The Problem

Scenario: Cluster Recreated

1. Initial state: Cluster A with ArgoCD, namespaces, secrets
2. Cluster deleted (spot preemption, manual deletion, provider issue)
3. Cluster B created with same name
4. Terraform apply fails:

Error: Resource already exists in state