Getting the Source AMI id when using HCL configuration

Packer
3

Yes! here’s a working config with several examples:

(This is on v1.6.1 which dropped yesterday)

source "amazon-ebs" "basic-example" {
  region =  "us-east-1"
  source_ami_filter {
    filters = {
       virtualization-type = "hvm"
       name = "ubuntu/images/*ubuntu-xenial-16.04-amd64-server-*"
       root-device-type = "ebs"
    }
    owners = ["099720109477"]
    most_recent = true
  }
  instance_type =  "t2.small"
  ssh_username =  "ubuntu"
  ami_name =  "packer_AWS {{timestamp}}"
}

build {
  sources = [
    "source.amazon-ebs.basic-example"
  ]

  provisioner "shell-local"{
    inline = ["echo '${build.SourceAMIName}'"]
    environment_vars = ["HELLO_USER=packeruser", "SOURCE_AMI_NAME=${build.SourceAMIName}"]
    execute_command = ["/bin/sh", "-c", "echo '${build.SourceAMIName}'", "{{.Vars}} {{.Script}}"]
  }
}

edit: this example use SourceAMIName but it will also work for SourceAMI:

use ${build.SourceAMI} if embedding it in a string (most likely), or build.SourceAMI if you’re setting it as a standalone value in an option