HashiCorp Packer Has a Free API: Automated Machine Image Creation for Any Platform

Packer is an open-source tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration. Build AMIs, Docker images, Vagrant boxes, and more — all from one template. What Is Packer? Packer automates the creation of machine images. Instead of manually configuring servers, you define your image as code and Packer builds it identically across AWS, Azure, GCP, Docker, VMware, and more. Key Features: Multi-platform (AWS, Azure, GCP, Docker, VMware) HCL2 configuration language Parallel builds for multiple platforms Provisioners (shell, Ansible, Chef, Puppet) Post-processors (compress, upload, tag) Plugin ecosystem CI/CD integration Idempotent builds Quick Start # Install brew install packer # Initialize plugins packer init . # Build packer build template.pkr.hcl Packer Template (HCL2) # docker-image.pkr.hcl packer { required_plugins { docker = { version = ">= 1.0.0" source = "github.com/hashicorp/docker" } } } source "docker" "ubuntu" { image = "ubuntu:22