hashicorp/terraform · error

%s canceled.

Error message

%s canceled.

What it means

In costEstimate(), when the cost-estimate sub-resource's status becomes tfe.CostEstimateCanceled. This means the cost estimation was canceled (typically because the parent run was canceled via the UI or API while estimation was pending/queued), so the polling loop returns this error to abort the operation.

Source

Thrown at internal/backend/remote/backend_common.go:366

				if i > 0 {
					elapsed = fmt.Sprintf(
						" (%s elapsed)", current.Sub(started).Truncate(30*time.Second))
				}
				b.CLI.Output(b.Colorize().Color(msgPrefix + ":\n"))
				b.CLI.Output(b.Colorize().Color("Waiting for cost estimate to complete..." + elapsed + "\n"))
			}
			continue
		case tfe.CostEstimateSkippedDueToTargeting:
			b.CLI.Output(b.Colorize().Color(msgPrefix + ":\n"))
			b.CLI.Output("Not available for this plan, because it was created with the -target option.")
			b.CLI.Output("\n------------------------------------------------------------------------")
			return nil
		case tfe.CostEstimateErrored:
			b.CLI.Output(msgPrefix + " errored.\n")
			b.CLI.Output("\n------------------------------------------------------------------------")
			return nil
		case tfe.CostEstimateCanceled:
			return fmt.Errorf("%s canceled.", msgPrefix)
		default:
			return fmt.Errorf("Unknown or unexpected cost estimate state: %s", ce.Status)
		}
	}
}

func (b *Remote) checkPolicy(stopCtx, cancelCtx context.Context, op *backendrun.Operation, r *tfe.Run) error {
	if b.CLI != nil {
		b.CLI.Output("\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n")
	}
	for i, pc := range r.PolicyChecks {
		// Read the policy check logs. This is a blocking call that will only
		// return once the policy check is complete.
		logs, err := b.client.PolicyChecks.Logs(stopCtx, pc.ID)
		if err != nil {
			return generalError("Failed to retrieve policy check logs", err)
		}
		reader := bufio.NewReaderSize(logs, 64*1024)

View on GitHub (pinned to c9def3e214)

Solutions

  1. Re-run the plan/apply — the cancellation was external and the next run will get a fresh cost estimate.
  2. Avoid canceling runs in the UI while a local CLI stream is attached.
  3. If cancellations are automated, review the automation triggering them.
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Type guard

func isCostCanceled(s tfe.CostEstimateStatus) bool {
    return s == tfe.CostEstimateCanceled
}

Try / catch

if err := b.costEstimate(stopCtx, cancelCtx, op, r); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "canceled") {
        // external cancel of cost estimate -> surface, invite re-run
    }
    return err
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: costEstimate() polls CostEstimates.Read; ce.Status == tfe.CostEstimateCanceled. Usually the parent run was discarded/canceled by a user or automation in the HCP/TFE UI while cost estimation was still running.

Common situations: Someone clicked 'Discard run' or canceled via API during a plan that includes cost estimation; a run exceeded a timeout and was auto-canceled; concurrent operations where one cancel cascades.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/terraform@c9def3e214 (2026-08-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cc049afadde28bd0. Report an issue: GitHub.