---
title: parent
url: /docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/parent/
---


The `parent` resource option specifies a parent for a resource, which has the following effects:

* The child inherits additional resource options from its parent.
* The Pulumi CLI shows the parent/child hierarchy in CLI output.

By default, resources are parented to the implicitly created `pulumi:pulumi:Stack` resource which is at the root of all Pulumi stacks. The most common use of explicitly setting the `parent` property is when authoring a [Component Resource](/docs/iac/concepts/components/). Resources that are part of a component should be explicitly parented to the component itself. This ensures that all resources within a component share desirable lifecycle behavior. You can also create multiple levels of nesting within a component to improve the visual display in the CLI.

> **Applies to custom and component resources.** The `parent` resource option applies to both [custom resources](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/) and [component resources](/docs/iac/concepts/components/). It is defined on the base resource-options type in every Pulumi SDK.

## Setting a resource's parent

The following example shows a simple parent/child relationship between two resources:

<!-- chooser: language -->

<!-- option: typescript -->
```typescript
const parent = new MyResource("parent", {/*...*/});
const child = new MyResource("child", {/*...*/}, { parent: parent });

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- option: python -->
```python
parent = MyResource("parent");
child = MyResource("child", opts=ResourceOptions(parent=parent));

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- option: go -->
```go
parent, _ := NewMyResource(ctx, "parent", &MyResourceArgs{/*...*/})
child, _ := NewMyResource(ctx, "child", &MyResourceArgs{/*...*/}, pulumi.Parent(parent))

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- option: csharp -->
```csharp
var parent = new MyResource("parent", new MyResourceArgs());
var child = new MyResource("child", new MyResourceArgs(),
    new CustomResourceOptions { Parent = parent });

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- option: java -->
```java
var parent = new MyResource("parent");
var child = new MyResource("child",
    MyResourceArgs.Empty,
    CustomResourceOptions.builder()
        .parent(parent)
        .build());

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- option: yaml -->
```yaml
resources:
  parent:
    type: MyResource
  child:
    type: MyResource
    options:
      parent: ${parent}

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- option: hcl -->
```hcl
resource "my_resource" "parent" {
  # ...
}

resource "my_resource" "child" {
  # ...

  pulumi {
    parent = my_resource.parent
  }
}

```

<!-- /option -->

<!-- /chooser -->

## Parent relationships in the CLI

Specifying a resource's parent can help visually organize resources in the CLI. For example, the following `pulumi up` output shows an AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with two child subnets (and also shows the VPC's child relationship to the implicit `pulumi:pulumi:Stack` resource):

```bash
Previewing update (dev):

    Type                    Name                             Plan
    pulumi:pulumi:Stack     parent-demo-dev
+   ├─ aws:ec2:Vpc          default-vpc-866580ff             create
+   │  ├─ aws:ec2:Subnet    default-vpc-866580ff-public-1    create
+   │  └─ aws:ec2:Subnet    default-vpc-866580ff-public-0    create
```

## Inherited resource options

A child resource inherits the following resource options from its `parent` unless the child sets the option explicitly. This is the complete list; other resource options are not inherited.

* [`provider`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/provider/): Child resources inherit their parent's provider to ensure that child resources are created in the same cloud context (account, region, etc.) as their parent.

* [`aliases`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/aliases/): Aliases are inherited so that changing the type of a parent resource correctly changes the qualified type of a child resource, and changing the name of a parent resource correctly changes the name prefix of child resources.

* [`protect`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/protect/): Child resources inherit their parent's protection bit to ensure that deletions execute correctly. Children are deleted before their parent, so inheriting protection ensures that if a parent is marked as protected, none of its children will be deleted (because deleting the protected parent would fail).

* [`retainOnDelete`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/retainondelete/): Child resources inherit their parent's `retainOnDelete` so that the resources inside a retained component are retained too. Setting `retainOnDelete` on a component resource has no effect on the component itself, which has no physical infrastructure to keep, but it applies to every child that doesn't set the option explicitly. A child can set `retainOnDelete: false` to opt out.

* [`transforms`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/transforms/):  Transforms applied to a parent will run on the parent and on all child resources. This allows a transform to be applied to a component to intercept and modify any resources created by its children. As a special case, [Stack transforms](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/transforms/#stack-transforms) will be applied to *all* resources (since all resources ultimately are parented directly or indirectly by the root stack resource).

* [`transformations`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/transformations/):  Transformations applied to a parent will run on the parent and on all child resources. This allows a transformation to be applied to a component to intercept and modify any resources created by its children. As a special case, [Stack transformations](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/transformations/#stack-transformations) will be applied to *all* resources (since all resources ultimately are parented directly or indirectly by the root stack resource). Prefer `transforms` over `transformations` as the latter is deprecated.

* [`deletedWith`](/docs/iac/concepts/resources/options/deletedwith/): Child resources inherit their parent's `deletedWith` so that when a parent is being removed alongside the resource named in its `deletedWith`, child deletions are skipped as well. This matches how containing resources (such as a Kubernetes namespace or a cloud resource group) cascade-delete their contents in the backing provider — individual child deletes are unnecessary, and skipping them also speeds up `pulumi destroy`.

The Pulumi engine, not the language SDK, applies inheritance for `provider`, `protect`, `retainOnDelete`, and `deletedWith`. As a result, SDK source code is not a reliable way to tell which options a child inherits.