How to fix Error: Removed block with invalid resource address in Terraform

The from argument in a removed block must NOT include instance indices. Remove any [0], ["key"], or similar notation.

# Wrong
removed {
  from = aws_instance.example[0]
}

# Correct
removed {
  from = aws_instance.example
}

If you need to remove a specific instance, use the terraform state rm command instead.

The resource address must be an unquoted reference. Do not wrap it in strings.

# Wrong
removed {
  from = "aws_instance.example"
}

# Correct
removed {
  from = aws_instance.example
}

Data sources cannot be removed via removed blocks. To stop managing a data source, simply delete the data source block from your configuration.

# This is invalid - data sources are not allowed in removed blocks
removed {
  from = data.aws_availability_zones.available
}

# Instead, just delete the data block from your configuration

If removing a resource from within a module, include the module path without instance keys:

# Correct for module resources
removed {
  from = module.my_module.aws_instance.example
}

# Wrong - instance key on module
removed {
  from = module.my_module[0].aws_instance.example
}

Every removed block must include a lifecycle block to control destruction behavior:

removed {
  from = aws_instance.example
  
  lifecycle {
    destroy = false  # Keep infrastructure running
  }
}

Set destroy = false to remove from state without destroying infrastructure, or destroy = true to actually destroy the resource.

If you need to remove a specific instance (with count or for_each), use the CLI command instead of a removed block:

# Remove a count-indexed instance
terraform state rm 'aws_instance.example[0]'

# Remove a for_each instance
terraform state rm 'aws_instance.example["key"]'

After running this command, you can safely delete the resource from your configuration.