The Console Change Nobody Recorded
What is infrastructure drift, how does it happen, and what does the next apply do about it?
Practical scenario
A security group was widened to 0.0.0.0/0 during a Friday incident and never recorded. A month later, an unrelated apply reverts it, breaking a partner integration that had quietly come to depend on the open rule.
What it tests
Answer it out loud first. The guide below stays closed until you ask for it, on purpose.
- Whether the candidate understands drift as divergence between declared and actual state
- Whether they can predict what a reconciling apply will do to a manual fix
- Whether they propose process controls rather than only tooling
Reading a strong answer is not the same as producing one. Commit to what you would say, then compare.