What is Idempotent?
An operation that produces the same result no matter how many times it's executed.
Idempotency means that applying an operation multiple times produces the same result as applying it once. This is a critical property for infrastructure automation (Terraform, Ansible) and API design. Terraform's 'apply' is idempotent: running it twice doesn't create duplicate resources. HTTP PUT and DELETE are idempotent; POST typically is not. Idempotency makes retries safe and automation reliable — a core principle of GitOps and IaC.
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