infracost diff" shows $0 for every resource - the terraform plan was generated without refresh

TL;DR

A plan generated without refresh (or against credentials that cannot read the state) gives infracost nothing to price, so everything shows $0. Regenerate the plan JSON with refresh enabled and working provider credentials, then re-run the diff.

Use this when

• Every resource in infracost diff shows $0.
• The diff works locally but shows zeros in CI.
• A -refresh=false flag or stale plan JSON is in the pipeline.

Not for this skill when

• Some resources price correctly and others show $0. That is an unsupported-resource problem.
• Estimates exist but look wrong. Check the usage file.

Steps

1. Check how the plan was made: look for -refresh=false or a cached plan JSON in the pipeline. Verify: you know the exact terraform plan command in use.
2. Regenerate: terraform plan -out=tfplan.binary with refresh enabled and real provider credentials, then terraform show -json tfplan.binary > plan.json. Verify: the JSON contains resource changes with attribute values.
3. Re-run infracost diff --path plan.json. Verify: resources now show nonzero costs.
4. If zeros persist in CI only, check the CI job's cloud credentials can read the resources being planned. Verify: terraform plan in CI reports the same change count as locally.
5. Confirm none of the zeroed resources are simply unsupported by infracost (check its resource docs). Verify: the remaining $0 lines are unsupported types, not a data problem.

Atlantis / Terraform Cloud variant

Some wrappers disable refresh by default. Verify: the wrapper's plan settings have refresh on.

Compatibility: infracost CLI, Terraform 1.x plan JSON.

Why it happens

infracost prices what the plan describes. A plan built without refresh describes desired state with empty current-state attributes, so quantity-dependent pricing (instance counts from data sources, volume sizes read from state) collapses to zero.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Data sources that read live infrastructure are the first casualty of no-refresh plans.
• A plan JSON committed to the repo goes stale; regenerate it in the pipeline instead.
• terraform plan -destroy diffs legitimately show costs dropping to zero; do not chase that one.
• Unsupported resources always show $0; distinguish that from the everything-is-zero failure.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_uFjMdAkDa2o1-5afdrX6gw

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_uFjMdAkDa2o1-5afdrX6gw

Thread query: "infracost diff" shows $0 for every resource - the terraform plan was generated without refresh

TL;DR: A plan generated without refresh (or against credentials that cannot read the state) gives infracost nothing to price, so everything shows $0. Regenerate the plan JSON with refresh enabled and working provider credentials, then re-run the diff.