Initializing and Migrating

After configuring cloud backend settings for a working directory, you must run tofu init to finish setting up. If the working directory has no existing OpenTofu state, you can start using OpenTofu with a cloud backend right away.

When you run tofu init in the following scenarios, OpenTofu will ask you to choose whether or not to migrate state from any existing workspaces.

1. Migrating from local state or state backends: If the working directory already has state data in one or more workspaces, OpenTofu will ask if you would like to migrate that state to new cloud backend workspaces.

2. Migrating from the remote backend: If the working directory was already connected to a cloud backend with the remote backend, OpenTofu can continue using the same cloud backend workspaces. You will need to switch the remote backend block to the cloud block.

Migrating from Local State or State Backends​

If the working directory already has state data available (using either local state or a state backend), OpenTofu asks your approval to migrate that state to the cloud backend. You will need permission to manage workspaces in the destination cloud backend organization. This process is interactive and self-documenting, and resembles moving between state backends.

OpenTofu may also prompt you to rename your workspaces during the migration, to either give a name to the unnamed default workspace (the cloud backend requires all workspaces to have a name) or give your workspace names more contextual information. Unlike OpenTofu CLI-only workspaces, which represent multiple environments associated with the same configuration (e.g. production, staging, development), cloud backend workspaces can represent totally independent configurations, and must have unique names within the cloud backend organization.

Because of this, OpenTofu will prompt you to rename the working directory's workspaces according to a pattern relative to their existing names. This can indicate the fact that these specific workspaces share configuration. A typical strategy is <COMPONENT>-<ENVIRONMENT>-<REGION> (e.g., networking-prod-us-east, networking-staging-us-east).

Migrating from the remote Backend​

If the working directory was already connected to a cloud backend with the remote backend, OpenTofu can continue using the same cloud backend workspaces. The local names shown for those workspaces will change to match their remote names.

The remote backend was the primary implementation for cloud backends for Terraform versions 0.11.13 through 1.0.x. We recommend using the native cloud integration for OpenTofu and Terraform versions 1.1 or later, as it provides an improved user experience and various enhancements.

Block Replacement​

When switching from the remote backend to a cloud block, OpenTofu will continue using the same set of cloud backend workspaces. Replace your backend "remote" block with an equivalent cloud block.

Single Workspace​

If you were using a single workspace with the name argument, change the block label to cloud.

terraform {
-  backend "remote" {
+  cloud {
    organization = "my-org"

    workspaces {
    name = "my-app-prod"
    }
   }
 }

Multiple Workspaces​

If you were using multiple workspaces with the prefix argument, replace it with a cloud block that uses the tags argument. You may specify any number of tags to distinguish the workspaces for your working directory, but a good starting point may be to use whatever the prefix was before.

The tags you configure do not need to be present on the existing workspaces. When you initialize, OpenTofu will add the specified tags to the workspaces if necessary.

terraform {
-  backend "remote" {
+  cloud {
     organization = "my-org"

    workspaces {
-      prefix = "my-app-"
+      tags = ["app:mine"]
    }
   }
 }