What happens if you run terraform apply immediately after a successful application without any changes?

When you run terraform apply immediately after a successful application, and no changes have been made to the configuration or the infrastructure, Terraform does not attempt to modify anything. It performs a comparison with the current state of the infrastructure defined in the configuration files and finds that it is already in the desired state.

As a result, Terraform recognizes that there are no changes to apply, and the outcome is that nothing will happen. This behavior ensures that Terraform is efficient and avoids unnecessary changes and resource creation, reflecting its declarative design philosophy. Terraform optimally maintains the infrastructure without needless operations, which helps in minimizing risks and resource consumption.