What Terraform Knows, What It Remembers, and What It Refuses to Show
Sensitive variables are often described as a security feature.
They are not.
In Terraform, sensitivity does not change how values behave.
It changes how values are seen.
A sensitive value still exists.
It still participates in the dependency graph.
It still enters state and influences change.
What changes is visibility.
In this lesson, we explore sensitive variables as a discipline of restraint, not protection. We look at how Terraform reasons about sensitive values, how sensitivity propagates through dependencies, and why masking output is about human safety rather than system security.
There are no commands in this video.
No workflows.
No step-by-step instructions.
Instead, we focus on the mental model.
If you have ever assumed that sensitive = true makes a value secure, this lesson gently corrects that assumption. Terraform remains honest. It simply refuses to gossip.
Watch the full lesson here: