| name | review-drift |
| description | [pr-review-focus-area: IaC Drift] Detect drift between IaC state (Terraform/Pulumi/CloudFormation) and live cloud or baremetal reality. |
| user-invocable | true |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
| allowed-tools | ["Read","Bash","Grep","Glob"] |
| argument-hint | [module path] |
IaC Drift Review
Compare declared infrastructure-as-code state against live cloud or baremetal reality, classify each drifted resource, and surface likely owners. This skill is read-only — it never runs apply, destroy, upgrade, or any mutating command.
Invocation
The user runs /review-drift [module path]. When no argument is supplied, scan from the repo root and auto-detect IaC modules. When a path is supplied, scope detection and planning to that directory and its descendants.
Execution Steps
Run the steps in order. For each step, report PASS, FAIL, SKIPPED (tool or credential missing), or N/A (no matching files).
1. Detect IaC Tool
Run the shared scope helper. Prefer ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/detect-iac-scope.sh and fall back to plugins/infra/scripts/detect-iac-scope.sh when running from the plugin dev repo.
SCRIPT="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-plugins/infra}/scripts/detect-iac-scope.sh"
[ -x "$SCRIPT" ] || SCRIPT="plugins/infra/scripts/detect-iac-scope.sh"
"$SCRIPT" "${1:-.}"
Parse the JSON output. Process the modules each tool reports independently and aggregate results:
| Tool | JSON field |
|---|
| Terraform | .terraform.present + .terraform.modules[] |
| Pulumi | .pulumi.present + .pulumi.stacks[] |
| CloudFormation | .cloudformation.present + .cloudformation.templates[] |
If none of the three are present: true, report SKIPPED with the reason "no IaC artifacts detected" and exit with verdict INCONCLUSIVE.
2. Plan Without Apply
For each detected tool, run the non-mutating diff command:
- Terraform:
terraform plan -detailed-exitcode -no-color -lock=false in each module directory that has .terraform/ present. Exit code 0 = no changes, 2 = drift present, 1 = error. If the module is not initialized, mark SKIPPED for that module — do NOT run terraform init.
- Pulumi:
pulumi preview --diff --non-interactive from the stack directory. A non-empty resource diff = drift present.
- CloudFormation:
aws cloudformation detect-stack-drift --stack-name <name> followed by describe-stack-resource-drifts. Any status other than IN_SYNC = drift present.
If credentials are missing, a state lock is held, or the provider is unauthenticated, mark the module INCONCLUSIVE and continue. Do not attempt to acquire credentials or break locks.
3. Classify Drift
For every drifted resource returned by step 2, assign exactly one tag:
- added-outside-IaC — resource exists live but not in state (Terraform
# forgets, CFN NOT_CHECKED with live match, Pulumi read diff).
- modified-outside-IaC — attributes changed live relative to state (Terraform
~, Pulumi update, CFN MODIFIED).
- deleted-outside-IaC — resource in state but absent live (Terraform
-, Pulumi delete, CFN DELETED).
- provider-side — cosmetic noise from the provider: attribute reordering, computed-after-apply fields, default-value fills, tag key reorder. These do not count toward the verdict.
When a classification is ambiguous (e.g. partial read), mark it unclear and include the raw plan fragment in the report appendix rather than guessing.
4. Identify Owner
For each non-noise drifted resource:
- Read tags / labels from the plan output for
owner, team, managed_by, cost-center, or service. Surface the first match.
- Cross-reference
CODEOWNERS (root, .github/, or docs/) for the IaC file that declared the resource. If a CODEOWNERS entry matches, list its owners alongside the tag owner.
- If neither source yields an owner, mark the row
unknown — do NOT infer an owner from author history or guesswork.
5. Report
Group findings by owner/team first, then by severity (deleted > modified > added > provider-side). Render the report shape below.
Output Format
## Drift Report - <module>
| Resource | Type | Drift | Likely cause | Owner |
|----------|------|-------|--------------|-------|
| aws_security_group.web | modified | ingress rule added | click-ops | platform |
| aws_s3_bucket.logs | added-outside-IaC | bucket exists live, not in state | manual console | unknown |
| google_compute_disk.cache | deleted-outside-IaC | disk removed live, still in state | cleanup script | sre |
**Totals:** added: N, modified: N, deleted: N, provider-noise: N
**Verdict:** <CLEAN | DRIFT-PRESENT | INCONCLUSIVE>
Include a ### Appendix: unclear classifications section only when step 3 produced unclear rows, and paste the verbatim plan fragment for each.
Verdict
- CLEAN — Terraform plan exits
0, Pulumi preview is empty, or CloudFormation returns IN_SYNC; alternatively, only provider-side entries remain after classification.
- DRIFT-PRESENT — one or more
added-outside-IaC, modified-outside-IaC, or deleted-outside-IaC rows exist.
- INCONCLUSIVE — credentials missing, state lock held, provider unauthenticated, module not initialized, or no IaC tool detected. Never promote INCONCLUSIVE to CLEAN.
Rules
- Read-only. Never run
terraform apply, terraform init, terraform refresh, pulumi up, pulumi refresh, aws cloudformation update-stack, or any mutating operation.
- Graceful skip. If the required CLI (
terraform, pulumi, aws) is not installed, or credentials are missing, mark the affected module SKIPPED and continue.
- No fabrication. Never invent resource ARNs, IDs, owners, or drift causes. When the plan output is ambiguous, mark the row
unclear and quote the raw plan fragment.
- No state mutation. Do not break state locks, do not pass
-lock=false when a lock is legitimately held, do not write to remote state backends.
- Scope discipline. Respect the argument path — do not traverse above it. When no argument is supplied, stop at the repo root and do not follow symlinks out of the tree.
$ARGUMENTS
