Packer: Feature: auto-load var files

[evansj]

There is a really nice feature in terrafom where it will automatically load terraform.tfvars and any *.auto.tfvars files without you having to specify -var-file=foo.tfvars on the command line.

My feature request is for a similar feature in packer, so for example I could create a file containing a var definition with a list of AWS account ids and regions:

sharing.auto.json

{
      "destination_regions": "us-east-1,eu-west-1",
      "destination_accounts": "12345678,23456789",
}

which I could pick up from any of the packer json files in the same directory:

ami_one.json

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "amazon-ebs",
      "ami_regions": "{{user `destination_regions` }}",
      "ami_users": "{{user `destination_accounts` }}",
      "....": "...."
    }
  ],
  "variables": {
    "destination_regions": "us-west-1,us-west-2",
    "destination_accounts": ""
  }
}

so I could run packer build ami_one.json without having to specify any var files on the command line.

[SwampDragons]

Good idea! I'm not sure when we'll be able to prioritize this but I would love to implement it.

[azr]

Hello there, this can now be closed as it works with Packer 🎉 ! Doc is here: https://www.packer.io/docs/from-1.5/variables

[evansj]

Thanks very much! 🎉

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