What Is Drift Remediation?

Drift remediation is the process of reconciling a system back to its declared desired state once drift has been detected. It may be automatic, where a controller continuously re-applies the declared config, or manual, where an operator reviews and applies the correction. It is the action that follows drift detection.

Why it matters

Detecting drift is only useful if it gets fixed; remediation closes the loop so the live system stays aligned with the reviewed, version-controlled source of truth. GitOps tools automate this by continuously reapplying the desired state, while infrastructure-as-code teams often remediate via a reviewed plan and apply.

Related concepts

• Follows drift detection in the reconcile loop
• Can be automatic (GitOps) or via reviewed apply
• Idempotent, declarative config makes it safe

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