Tell one scenario where you used Terraform lifecycle in infrastructure automation.

In a recent project, we needed to upgrade a critical database cluster without downtime. The database resource in Terraform had a lifecycle rule that prevented deletion: prevent_destroy = true. This ensured that Terraform would not accidentally delete the database during a plan that removed or renamed the resource. Additionally, we used create_before_destroy to create a new database instance before destroying the old one, guaranteeing that the new instance was fully provisioned and healthy before the old one was removed. This lifecycle configuration allowed us to perform a rolling upgrade: Terraform created the new instance, ran health checks, and only after confirmation did it delete the old instance. The result was zero downtime and a safe, automated migration path that could be version‑controlled and reviewed in code.