hashicorp/terraform · error

error when preparing state store config for planfile

Error message

error when preparing state store config for planfile: %s

What it means

StateStoreConfigState.PlanData called Validate() and it returned an error; PlanData wraps it with this message. The wrapped error is one of [772]-[777] describing the specific validation failure. PlanData runs while writing a plan file, so the user sees this when a `terraform plan` cannot serialise the state_store configuration.

Solutions

  1. Read the wrapped error — it identifies which [772]-[777] check failed; follow that error's fix.
  2. Re-run `terraform init` to rewrite a clean state_store record before planning.
  3. Delete .terraform/terraform.tfstate and re-init if the record is unrecoverable.

Example fix

rm .terraform/terraform.tfstate
terraform init
terraform plan
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// pre-flight: validate before plan to surface a friendlier error
if err := s.Validate(); err != nil {
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("cannot write plan: state_store config invalid — re-run `terraform init`: %w", err)
}

Try / catch

store, err := s.PlanData(storeSchema, providerSchema, workspace)
if err != nil {
    if vErr := newValidateError(err); vErr != nil {
        return nil, fmt.Errorf("plan blocked by invalid state_store (%v); run `terraform init` and retry", vErr)
    }
    return nil, err
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running `terraform plan` (or any command that creates a plan) when the loaded StateStoreConfigState is invalid — empty, missing fields, bad provider source, or missing version under ManagedByTerraform mode.

Common situations: State file corrupted or partially written, mismatched Terraform version reading a newer state_store format, manual tampering.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/terraform@d32a084675 (2026-08-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9b876e00767fc537. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at internal/command/workdir/statestore_config_state.go:122

		return err
	}
	s.ConfigRaw = buf
	return nil
}

// PlanData produces an alternative representation of the receiver that is
// suitable for storing in a plan. The current workspace must additionally
// be provided, to be stored alongside the state store configuration.
//
// The state_store configuration schema is required in order to properly
// encode the state store-specific configuration settings.
func (s *StateStoreConfigState) PlanData(storeSchema *configschema.Block, providerSchema *configschema.Block, workspaceName string) (*plans.StateStore, error) {
	if s == nil {
		panic("PlanData called on a nil *StateStoreConfigState receiver. This is a bug in Terraform and should be reported.")
	}

	if err := s.Validate(); err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error when preparing state store config for planfile: %s", err)
	}

	storeConfigVal, err := s.Config(storeSchema)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to decode state_store config: %w", err)
	}
	providerConfigVal, err := s.Provider.Config(providerSchema)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to decode state_store's nested provider config: %w", err)
	}

	var providerVersion *version.Version
	switch s.ProviderSupplyMode {
	case getproviders.BuiltIn, getproviders.Reattached, getproviders.DevOverride:
		// For built-in providers, reattached providers, and developer overrides, we don't require version information to be present in the state file, so we should be tolerant of it being missing.
		// In this case we can just use a placeholder version that will never actually be used for anything, but allows us to avoid returning an error when trying to save state store data to a plan file.
		providerVersion = version.Must(version.NewVersion("0.0.0"))
	case getproviders.ManagedByTerraform:

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