Troubleshooting

terraform show -json failed

Terraform can only read a saved plan in the working directory that created it, after terraform init, with the same providers.

• Run planlens in the directory where you ran terraform plan, or pass --chdir <dir>.
• Run terraform init there first if .terraform is missing.
• Use the same Terraform version that created the plan.

You can always convert the plan yourself and pass the JSON:

terraform show -json tfplan > plan.json
planlens plan.json

Couldn't find terraform on your PATH

planlens needs terraform, or tofu, only to read saved plan files. Either:

• install Terraform or OpenTofu;
• point planlens at the binary with --bin /path/to/terraform;
• pass plan JSON instead of the saved plan.

is the text output of terraform plan

planlens needs the JSON form of a plan, not the printed text. Save the plan with -out=tfplan, then pass the file, or terraform show -json tfplan > plan.json.

npm says the engine is unsupported, or planlens fails to start

planlens needs Node.js 22 or newer. Check with node --version and upgrade; see Installation.

The browser didn't open

Copy the Viewer: address from the terminal into your browser. On a machine without a desktop, use --no-open and an SSH tunnel; see Getting started.

The page says Forbidden

The viewer only answers requests addressed to 127.0.0.1 or localhost on its own port. Open the exact address planlens printed. When tunnelling, use the same port number on both ends.

Couldn't start the viewer on port …

Another program is using that port. Leave out --port to use any free port, or pick a different one.

The page is blank

planlens needs a browser from the last few years: current Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.

A report shows (sensitive value)

That's intended: reports have sensitive values removed. To keep them, export with --include-sensitive and treat the file as a secret. See Shareable reports.