hashicorp/terraform · error

empty state name

Error message

empty state name

What it means

Returned by Local.DeleteWorkspace (internal/backend/local/backend.go:244) when the provided workspace name is the empty string. The local backend refuses to delete a workspace with no name because there is nothing to target and it would be a programming error rather than a user action.

Source

Thrown at internal/backend/local/backend.go:244

	sort.Strings(listed)
	envs = append(envs, listed...)

	return envs, diags
}

// DeleteWorkspace removes a workspace.
//
// The "default" workspace cannot be removed.
func (b *Local) DeleteWorkspace(name string, force bool) tfdiags.Diagnostics {
	var diags tfdiags.Diagnostics

	// If we have a backend handling state, defer to that.
	if b.Backend != nil {
		return b.Backend.DeleteWorkspace(name, force)
	}

	if name == "" {
		return diags.Append(errors.New("empty state name"))
	}

	if name == backend.DefaultStateName {
		return diags.Append(errors.New("cannot delete default state"))
	}

	delete(b.states, name)
	err := os.RemoveAll(filepath.Join(b.stateWorkspaceDir(), name))
	if err != nil {
		return diags.Append(fmt.Errorf("error deleting workspace %s: %w", name, err))
	}

	return diags
}

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

View on GitHub (pinned to c9def3e214)

Solutions

1. Resolve and pass a non-empty workspace name to DeleteWorkspace.
2. Validate that the workspace name is non-empty before calling the API (guard at the call site).
3. If the empty name comes from env/config, fix the configuration so the workspace is always defined.

Example fix

// before
b.DeleteWorkspace(ws, false) // ws may be ""

// after
if ws == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot delete workspace: name is empty")
}
b.DeleteWorkspace(ws, false)

if name == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot delete workspace: name is empty")
}
b.DeleteWorkspace(name, force)

When it happens

Trigger: Calling (*Local).DeleteWorkspace("", force) directly; CLI/frontend code that passes an unset/empty workspace variable (e.g. a missing TF_WORKSPACE or an unconfigured current workspace) into DeleteWorkspace.

Common situations: Bugs in wrappers/automation that fail to resolve the current workspace before calling DeleteWorkspace; scripts that read the workspace from a config/env var that was never set and pass the zero value.

Related errors

• cannot delete default state
• missing state name
• missing state name
• missing state name
• default workspace not supported You can create a new workspa

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/terraform@c9def3e214 (2026-08-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/be354295f38283c2. Report an issue: GitHub.