hashicorp/terraform · warning

can't delete default state

Error message

can't delete default state

What it means

The in-memory backend refuses to delete its default workspace. DeleteWorkspace() checks the requested name against backend.DefaultStateName ("default") and the empty string, and returns this error to protect the always-present default state from removal.

Source

Thrown at internal/backend/remote-state/inmem/backend.go:119

	states.Lock()
	defer states.Unlock()

	var workspaces []string

	for s := range states.m {
		workspaces = append(workspaces, s)
	}

	sort.Strings(workspaces)
	return workspaces, nil
}

func (b *Backend) DeleteWorkspace(name string, _ bool) tfdiags.Diagnostics {
	states.Lock()
	defer states.Unlock()

	if name == backend.DefaultStateName || name == "" {
		return tfdiags.Diagnostics{}.Append(fmt.Errorf("can't delete default state"))
	}

	delete(states.m, name)
	return nil
}

func (b *Backend) StateMgr(name string) (statemgr.Full, tfdiags.Diagnostics) {
	var diags tfdiags.Diagnostics

	states.Lock()
	defer states.Unlock()

	s := states.m[name]
	if s == nil {
		s = &remote.State{
			Client: &RemoteClient{
				Name: name,
			},

View on GitHub (pinned to c9def3e214)

Solutions

1. Skip the workspace named 'default' (and the empty string) in any cleanup loop that deletes workspaces.
2. Delete or recreate non-default workspaces only; the default workspace is managed by the backend and cannot be removed.
3. To reset all in-memory state in tests, call inmem.Reset() directly rather than deleting individual workspaces.

Example fix

# before - deletes every workspace including default
for ws in $(terraform workspace list); do terraform workspace delete "$ws"; done

# after - skip the protected default workspace
for ws in $(terraform workspace list); do
  [ "$ws" = "default" ] && continue
  terraform workspace delete "$ws"
done

// Guard any workspace cleanup loop against the protected default name
func deleteAllNonDefault(b backend.Backend, names []string) error {
    for _, n := range names {
        if n == "default" || n == "" {
            continue
        }
        if diags := b.DeleteWorkspace(n, false); diags.HasErrors() {
            return diags.Err()
        }
    }
    return nil
}

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking `terraform workspace delete default` (or deleting an empty-named workspace) while using the `inmem` backend, which calls DeleteWorkspace at inmem/backend.go:114-124.

Common situations: CI/test scripts that programmatically clean up all workspaces without skipping 'default'; a test helper that iterates Workspaces() and deletes each one including the default.

Related errors

• failed to lock inmem state: %s
• can't delete default state
• HTTP error: %d
• Failed to configure: %s
• secret_suffix must not end with '-<number>', got %q

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/terraform@c9def3e214 (2026-08-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/687ecae5cc54cb7d. Report an issue: GitHub.