packer-py: write Packer templates in YAML

Packer <https://www.packer.io> is a nice tool, but its configuration files are written in JSON. That means that editing the files by hand is somewhat cumbersome (with all those quotes and whatnot).

This is a simple wrapper script that allows one to use the YAML format to write Packer templates <https://www.packer.io/docs/templates/>. Simply run the script and pass the usual Packer commands <https://www.packer.io/docs/commands/> and options, but instead of a JSON template, pass a YAML one.

Note that when the fix command is run, the script will convert the JSON output from packer into YAML for you.

Installation

At the moment this project in not on PyPI, but you have several options to use it:

• simply copy the script over on your machine, make it executable and run it. You are responsible of installing its dependencies though!
• clone this repository, run make egg, make the egg file in the dist directory executable and copy it somewhere in your $PATH. You are responsible of installing its dependencies though!
• use pip install by doing either of the below:
  • clone this repository and run pip install . (you may or may not want to use a virtual environment). The script will be available as packer-py.
  • use pip's VCS support <https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/reference/pip_install/#vcs-support>