IaC · maintainability

no-comment-cruft

iac:no-comment-cruft

Commented-out Terraform/IaC or a section-banner comment — delete it; code carries the what, comments only the why.

Code: SARJ202
Default: error
Fix: none
Languages: iac

Why

Disabled declarations drift from executable infrastructure, while decorative banners duplicate structure already expressed by modules and resource blocks.

Fix

Delete disabled HCL and decorative dividers; retain only comments that explain a non-obvious reason.

Before / after

Executed by this rule’s unit tests.

Before

Disabled Terraform resource

main.tf · focus

# resource "google_storage_bucket" "old" {
resource "google_storage_bucket" "current" {}

After

Comment explaining an infrastructure constraint

main.tf · focus

# Keep this bucket in us-central1 for data residency.
resource "google_storage_bucket" "records" {}

Limits

Commented assignments in tfvars files are allowed because they commonly document optional inputs.
Directives and heredoc bodies are excluded, and disabled HCL runs must be code-dominant.