plan

Show an execution plan without applying changes. The plan compares the desired state defined in .crn files against the current infrastructure state and displays what actions Carina would take.

Usage

carina plan [OPTIONS] [PATH]

PATH defaults to . (current directory). It can be a .crn file or a directory containing .crn files.

Flags

--detail <LEVEL>

Controls how much detail is shown in plan output.

Value	Description
full (default)	Show all attributes: user-specified, defaults, read-only, and unchanged (dimmed)
explicit	Show only attributes explicitly specified in the .crn file
none	Show resource names only (no attributes)

--tui

Display the plan in an interactive TUI (terminal user interface) mode. Allows navigating resources and viewing attribute details in a structured layout.

--out <FILE>

Save the plan to a JSON file for later use with carina apply. The saved plan includes the effects, resource definitions, provider configurations, and state metadata for drift detection.

carina plan --out plan.json
carina apply plan.json

--detailed-exitcode

Change the exit code behavior:

Exit code	Meaning
0	No changes needed
1	Error occurred
2	Changes are present (only with --detailed-exitcode)

This is useful in CI pipelines to detect whether changes exist without parsing output.

--refresh <BOOL>

Refresh state from the cloud provider before planning. Defaults to true.

When set to false, Carina uses cached state and prints a warning. The plan may not reflect actual infrastructure.

carina plan --refresh=false

--json

Output the plan as structured JSON instead of human-readable text. The output uses the same format as --out (PlanFile), including effects, resource definitions, and current states. Secrets are redacted.

carina plan --json

Examples

Plan from the current directory:

carina plan

Plan a specific file with compact output:

carina plan --detail=none infra.crn

Save a plan for later apply:

carina plan --out plan.json

Use in CI to detect drift:

carina plan --detailed-exitcode

Output Format

The plan output shows each resource with its effect type:

• Create (+) — new resource to be created
• Update (~) — existing resource with attribute changes
• Delete (-) — resource to be removed
• Replace (+/-) — resource that must be destroyed and recreated

A summary line shows the total count of each effect type.