Terraform's S3 backend no longer needs a DynamoDB table

The S3 backend has supported native locking since Terraform 1.10 — set use_lockfile = true and it writes a .tflock object alongside the state file, using S3’s conditional writes instead of a separate lock table.

terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket       = "my-state-bucket"
    key          = "project/terraform.tfstate"
    region       = "us-east-1"
    encrypt      = true
    use_lockfile = true
  }
}

The dynamodb_table argument still works but is deprecated. Worth knowing mostly because every bootstrap guide written before late 2024 tells you to create a table first, and that’s now a resource you can skip.