Pulumi import operations not triggering apply phase in Spacelift

When using Pulumi stacks in Spacelift, if your plan only includes import statements, the apply phase will not run automatically. This is a known limitation of Spacelift's Pulumi integration.

Why this happens

Spacelift does not currently implement parsing of import statements for Pulumi stacks. When the system detects that a plan contains only imports with no other resource changes, it skips the apply phase entirely.

Workaround

To handle imports in Pulumi stacks, we recommend using Spacelift tasks instead of relying on the standard plan/apply workflow. This allows you to manually execute the import operations when needed.

Alternative approach: Terraform provider bridge

For teams looking to continue using Pulumi with Spacelift, consider leveraging Pulumi's support for consuming Terraform providers via a wrapper. This approach uses Pulumi's Terraform bridge functionality, which has been available since August 2024.

You can learn more about this approach in the Pulumi blog post about Terraform provider support.

Current status

Spacelift is not actively investing further development in the native Pulumi provider. The recommendation is to use tasks for import operations or consider the Terraform provider bridge for new implementations.