Write-only attributes

:::info Write-only attributes can be used only with OpenTofu v1.11 onwards. :::

This attribute is only found in managed resources that are designed to accept transient values that will never be stored in the state or plan. For example, a secret can be read by using an ephemeral resource and then passed into the write-only attribute password_wo of a managed resource.

The lifecycle of these attributes is quite different compared with other types of attributes:

• A write-only attribute exists only in the configuration section of a resource
• A write-only attribute will always be written into the state and plan with a null value
• A write-only attribute will always be returned as null from the provider even if in the configuration it had an actual value
• A write-only attribute can reference regular and ephemeral values (normal attributes cannot reference ephemeral values)

Rendering

When present in the plan/apply cli output, it will always be displayed as (write-only attribute).

Updating a write-only attribute

As OpenTofu has no way to know what value is currently in the remote resource (ie: null value in the state) and doesn't know what value has been (or planned to be) stored remotely (ie: provider returns null value for these attributes), it cannot generate a change for such attributes. As a recommendation for the provider authors, alongside the write-only attribute, there should be included also a non-write-only attribute meant to instruct the provider that the value given in the configuration of the write-only attribute should be used to update the resource.

For example, aws_secretsmanager_secret_version offers 2 fields for this: secret_string_wo which is the write-only attribute and secret_string_wo_version that is the non-write-only attribute. By changing the value of secret_string_wo_version from what is stored currently in the state, provider will trigger an update of the secret_string_wo attribute with the value provided in the configuration.

Example

For an in-depth example on how to use write-only attributes, please refer to this example.