Apply defaults to terraform_remote_state if state file doesn't exist

[edahlseng]

Current Terraform Version

Terraform v0.12.5

Use-cases

I have a project that uses the terraform_remote_state resource. When bootstrapping the project, however, the remote state file that it targets doesn't exist. I've added defaults to the resource to work against this, however Terraform still complains with Error: Unable to find remote state.

Attempted Solutions

During the bootstrapping project, I currently comment out the terraform_remote_state resource, and then replace all of the resource interpolations with the defaults values directly. This works, but is a little cumbersome.

Proposal

My original intuition with terraform_remote_state was that the defaults would apply, even if the remote state file didn't exist. If this was possible, I think it would make this workflow much smoother!

References

As far as I know, there aren't any related GitHub issues.

[bendavies]

I also need this, as my terraform_remote_state key is optional. it may or may not exist.

[willgleich]

I wonder if it is possible to add a fail_silently variable so this doesn't remain toil for anyone who wants to leverage coming state in larger terraform repositories. Similarly to how try and can work.

[SimCo92]

Did someone found a workaround to this?

[wholien]

Bumping here - anyone have solutions/workarounds for this?

[legioner0]

Same problem on v1.6.3 with S3 backend