---
description: |
  The `packer init` Packer command is used to download Packer plugin binaries.
page_title: packer init - Commands
sidebar_title: <tt>init</tt>
---

# `init` Command

-> **Note:** Packer does not currently have the notion of a state like Terraform
has. In other words, currently `packer init` is only in charge of installing
packer plugins.

-> **Note:** Currently, `packer init` can only fetch binaries from public
projects on *Github*.

-> **Note:** Currently, `packer init` only fetches binaries using Github's
public API, which [limits the number of unauthenticated requests per hour one IP
can
do](https://docs.github.com/en/developers/apps/rate-limits-for-github-apps#normal-user-to-server-rate-limits).
Packer will do its best to avoid hitting those limits and in an average local
usage this should not be an issue. Otherwise you can set the
`PKR_GITHUB_API_TOKEN` env var in order to get more requests per hour. Go to
your personal [access token page](https://github.com/settings/tokens) to
generate a new token.

-> **Note:** Packer init does not work with legacy JSON templates. You can
upgrade your JSON config files to HCL using the hcl2ugprade command.

-> **Note:** Packer init will only work with multiplugins -- that is plugins
that are named `packer-plugin-*` -- to install a single plugin binary -- that is
`packer-provisioner-*`, `packer-builder-*`, etc. -- nothing changes, you will
have to [install the plugin manually](/docs/plugins#installing-plugins).

The `packer init` command is used to download Packer plugin binaries.
This is the first command that should be executed when working with a new or
existing template. This command is always safe to run multiple times. Though
subsequent runs may give errors, this command will never delete anything.

`packer init` will list all installed plugins then download the latest versions
for the ones that are missing.

`packer init -upgrade` will try to get the latest versions for all plugins.


Import a plugin using the [`required_plugin`](/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/packer#specifying-plugin-requirements)
block :

```hcl
packer {
  required_plugins {
    myawesomecloud = {
      version = ">= 2.7.0"
      source = "azr/myawesomecloud"
    }
    happycloud = ">= 2.7.0"
  }
}
```

Packer init will install the latest found version matching the version selection
in the `required_plugins` section. Make sure to set a correct [version
constraint
string](/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/packer#version-constraints). The
plugins will be installed in the [Plugin
Directory](/docs/configure#packer-s-plugin-directory).


## Options

- `-upgrade` - On top of installing missing plugins, update installed plugins to
  the latest available version, if there is a new higher one. Note that this
  still takes into consideration the version constraint of the config.