Terraform init ignores -input=false option

Terraform
1

Hi all.

Running terraform in automated pipeline and attempting to upgrade from 12.12 to 13.4. Noticed in 13.4 that terraform init now prompts for workspace selection. I added the input=false flag but terraform ignores it and prompts anyway.

Use case: we supply the workspace via the TF_WORKSPACE env variable. All of our states are remote. Sometimes the workspace is brand new, having no remote state file yet. Initialization fails which fails the pipeline build with error: Error: Failed to select workspace: input not a valid number. Cannot run terraform workspace new command because it doesn’t make it past init.

Expected behavior: terraform init -input=false skips input and errors at least allowing some scripting to then create the new workspace. OR terraform init should allow an option to create workspace if not exists.

Actual behavior:

$ terraform init -input=false
Initializing modules...

Initializing the backend...

The currently selected workspace (sbx-013-emptyTest) does not exist.
  This is expected behavior when the selected workspace did not have an
  existing non-empty state. Please enter a number to select a workspace:

  1. default
  2. ...

  Enter a value:


Error: Failed to select workspace: input not a valid number


$ terraform init -input=0
Initializing modules...

Initializing the backend...

The currently selected workspace (sbx-013-emptyTest) does not exist.
  This is expected behavior when the selected workspace did not have an
  existing non-empty state. Please enter a number to select a workspace:

  1. default
  2. ...

  Enter a value:

Please advise and thank you in advance!

2

Found a workaround: do not set the TF_WORKSPACE variable and instead use another variable to then populate the terraform workspace new command. Like this:

source terraform.env
terraform init -no-color
terraform workspace select ${TF_workspace} -no-color || terraform workspace new ${TF_workspace} -no-color