azure-image-builder

Azure Image Builder is a HashiCorp Packer skill for building Azure managed images and Azure Compute Gallery images using Packer's azure-arm builder. It solves the problem of producing consistent, pre-provisioned custom VM images for Azure, giving copy-ready HCL templates and the surrounding build workflow.

The skill provides a complete basic managed-image template (required plugin block, sensitive client_id/client_secret variables, subscription and tenant variables, source image publisher/offer/SKU, VM size, location, tags, and a shell provisioner running apt updates) plus a Compute Gallery destination example with replication regions and storage-account type. It documents two authentication approaches using official Azure tooling: creating a service principal with az ad sp create-for-rbac and exporting ARM_CLIENT_ID/ARM_CLIENT_SECRET/ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID/ARM_TENANT_ID environment variables, or using managed identity via use_azure_cli_auth. Standard build commands (packer init, packer validate, packer build) and a common-issues section (authentication failures, immutable Compute Gallery versions, provisioning timeouts) round it out, along with links to the upstream Azure ARM builder and Compute Gallery documentation, and a note that builds incur cost and take 15-45 minutes.

It targets DevOps and platform engineers building golden images for Azure VMs with Packer. Credentials are handled through standard, documented practices (sensitive Packer variables and environment variables sourced from an Azure service principal or CLI auth) with no exfiltration; the shell provisioning shown is limited to routine package updates.