The variable block, also called the input-variable block, defines variables within your Packer configuration. An input-variable cannot be used in another input variable: we recommend using locals for that instead.

# variables.pkr.hcl
variable "foo" {
    type        = string
    default     = "the default value of the `foo` variable"
    description = "description of the `foo` variable"
    sensitive   = false
    # When a variable is sensitive all string-values from that variable will be
    # obfuscated from Packer's output.
}

Default value

If a default value is set, the variable is optional. Otherwise, the variable must be set.

Assigning Values to input Variables

Once a variable is declared in your configuration, you can set it:

• Individually, with the -var foo=bar command line option.
• In variable definitions files, either specified on the command line with the -var-files values.pkrvars.hcl or automatically loaded (*.auto.pkrvars.hcl).
• As environment variables, for example: PKR_VAR_foo=bar

Custom Validation Rules

In addition to Type Constraints, you can specify arbitrary custom validation rules for a particular variable using one or more validation block nested within the corresponding variable block:

variable "image_id" {
  type        = string
  description = "The ID of the machine image (AMI) to use for the server."

  validation {
    condition     = length(var.image_id) > 4 && substr(var.image_id, 0, 4) == "ami-"
    error_message = "The image_id value must be a valid AMI ID, starting with \"ami-\"."
  }
}

The condition argument is an expression that must use the value of the variable to return true if the value is valid or false if it is invalid. The expression can refer only to the variable that the condition applies to, and must not produce errors.

If the failure of an expression is the basis of the validation decision, use the can function to detect such errors. For example:

variable "image_id" {
  type        = string
  description = "The ID of the machine image (AMI) to use for the server."

  validation {
    # regex(...) fails if it cannot find a match
    condition     = can(regex("^ami-", var.image_id))
    error_message = "The image_id value must be a valid AMI ID, starting with \"ami-\"."
  }
}

If condition evaluates to false, an error message including the sentences given in error_message will be produced. The error message string should be at least one full sentence explaining the constraint that failed, using a sentence structure similar to the above examples.

Validation also works with more complex cases:

variable "image_metadata" {

  default = {
    key: "value",
    something: {
      foo: "bar",
    }
  }

  validation {
    condition     = length(var.image_metadata.key) > 4
    error_message = "The image_metadata.key field must be more than 4 runes."
  }

  validation {
    condition     = can(var.image_metadata.something.foo)
    error_message = "The image_metadata.something.foo field must exist."
  }

  validation {
    condition     = substr(var.image_metadata.something.foo, 0, 3) == "bar"
    error_message = "The image_metadata.something.foo field must start with \"bar\"."
  }

}

Example of a variable assignment from a file:

# foo.pkrvars.hcl
foo = "value"

A variable value must be known:

Take the following variable for example:

variable "foo" {
  type = string
}

Here foo must have a known value but you can default it to null to make this behavior optional :

1: Null is a valid value. Packer will only error when the receiving field needs a value, example:

variable "example" {
  type = string
  default = null
}

source "example" "foo" {
  arg = var.example
}

In the above case, as long as "arg" is optional for an "example" source, there is no error and arg won’t be set.

Suppressing Sensitive Variables

When a variable is sensitive all string-values from that variable will be obfuscated from Packer's output :

# var-foo.pkr.hcl
variable "foo" {
    sensitive = true
    default   = {
        key = "SECR3TP4SSW0RD"
    }
}

$ packer inspect var-foo.pkr.hcl
Packer Inspect: HCL2 mode

> input-variables:
var.foo: "{\n  \"key\" = \"<sensitive>\"\n }"
...

More on variables

• Read the full variables description for a more thorough read.
• Read the variables guide for more examples.