Does this run Terraform?

No. It only generates plausible plan text. No providers are queried, no state is read, and nothing is applied. The resource names and values are synthetic.

What do the symbols mean?

They are the real Terraform action symbols: + creates a resource, ~ updates it in place, - destroys it, and -/+ destroys and recreates (replaces) it. The summary line counts adds, changes, and destroys accordingly.

How is the Plan summary computed?

It tallies the generated actions. A create adds 1 to add, an update adds 1 to change, a destroy adds 1 to destroy, and a replace adds 1 to both add and destroy, exactly as Terraform reports.

Which resource types appear?

Common AWS examples such as aws_instance, aws_s3_bucket, aws_security_group, aws_db_instance, aws_iam_role, and aws_lambda_function, each with a few representative attributes.

Fake Terraform Plan Output Generator

Realistic Terraform plans without an account

Building or demoing infrastructure-as-code tooling means you need example terraform plan output, but you do not want to point it at real cloud credentials or state. This tool generates a believable plan using Terraform’s actual change notation and a correct summary line, all locally.

How it works

A seed drives a mulberry32 pseudo-random generator so the plan is reproducible.

For each resource, an action is chosen: create, update, destroy, or replace.
Lines use the real symbols. Created attributes show + name = value, updated attributes show ~ name = old -> new, and destroyed attributes show - name = value -> null.
The summary tallies the actions:

Plan: 3 to add, 1 to change, 2 to destroy.

A replace (-/+) counts as both an add and a destroy, matching Terraform’s own arithmetic.

Tips and notes

Use a small resource count for clean screenshots and a larger one to test how a dashboard handles long diffs. Because the output uses genuine Terraform symbols and summary math, it reads as authentic to engineers reviewing it. Keep the seed fixed in tests so your fixtures stay deterministic across runs.