lifecycle

The lifecycle meta-argument in Testform customizes the default lifecycle management of test resources, protecting them against accidental destruction and suppressing unwanted state drift.

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Active lifecycle Directives

Testform implements two primary controls:

1. prevent_destroy

Strictly halts any execution plan attempting to delete or archive critical test specifications during testform destroy or reconciliation plans:

@auth @critical
@prevent_destroy
Scenario: High-value bank fund transfer
  Given user has sufficient account balance
  When user authorizes transfer with multi-factor authentication
  Then transaction receipt is generated

If an operator or pipeline attempts to destroy this scenario:

[ERROR] Cannot destroy resource protected by prevent_destroy:
  auth/payment.feature.@transfer_funds
  The resource is configured with prevent_destroy = true.

2. ignore_changes

Suppresses drift detection when external edits occur (e.g. labels, assignees, or priority fields modified in issue trackers):

@ignore_changes("labels", "assignees", "priority")
Scenario: User profile inspection
  Given user navigates to settings dashboard
  Then personal information is displayed

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Centralized YAML Configuration

Following Terraform conventions, the lifecycle meta-argument belongs strictly within the resource: block:

# main.yml or resource.yml
resource:
  testcase:
    match: "features/*.case.feature"
    lifecycle:
      prevent_destroy: true
      ignore_changes:
        - labels
        - assignees