---
layout: "docs"
page_title: "User Variables in Templates"
---

# User Variables

User variables allow your templates to be further configured with variables
from the command-line, environmental variables, or files. This lets you
parameterize your templates so that you can keep secret tokens,
environment-specific data, and other types of information out of your
templates. This maximizes the portability and shareability of the template.

Using user variables expects you know how
[configuration templates](/docs/templates/configuration-templates.html) work.
If you don't know how configuration templates work yet, please read that
page first.

## Usage

User variables must first be defined in a `variables` section within your
template. Even if you want a variable to default to an empty string, it
must be defined. This explicitness makes it easy for newcomers to your
template to understand what can be modified using variables in your template.

The `variables` section is a simple key/value mapping of the variable
name to a default value. A default value can be the empty string. An
example is shown below:

<pre class="prettyprint">
{
  "variables": {
    "aws_access_key": "",
    "aws_secret_key": ""
  },

  "builders": [{
    "type": "amazon-ebs",
    "access_key": "{{user `aws_access_key`}}",
    "secret_key": "{{user `aws_secret_key`}}",
    ...
  }]
}
</pre>

In the above example, the template defines two variables: `aws_access_key` and
`aws_secret_key`. They default to empty values.
Later, the variables are used within the builder we defined in order to
configure the actual keys for the Amazon builder.

If the default value is `null`, then the user variable will be _required_.
This means that the user must specify a value for this variable or template
validation will fail.

Using the variables is extremely easy. Variables are used by calling
the user function in the form of <code>{{user &#96;variable&#96;}}</code>.
This function can be used in _any value_ within the template, in
builders, provisioners, _anything_. The user variable is available globally
within the template.

## Environmental Variables

Environmental variables can be used within your template using user
variables. The `env` function is available _only_ within the default value
of a user variable, allowing you to default a user variable to an
environmental variable. An example is shown below:

<pre class="prettyprint">
{
  "variables": {
    "my_secret": "{{env `MY_SECRET`}}",
  },

  ...
}
</pre>

This will default "my\_secret" to be the value of the "MY\_SECRET"
environmental variable (or the empty string if it does not exist).

<div class="alert alert-info">
<strong>Why can't I use environmental variables elsewhere?</strong>
User variables are the single source of configurable input to a template.
We felt that having environmental variables used <em>anywhere</em> in a
template would confuse the user about the possible inputs to a template.
By allowing environmental variables only within default values for user
variables, user variables remain as the single source of input to a template
that a user can easily discover using <code>packer inspect</code>.
</div>

## Setting Variables

Now that we covered how to define and use variables within a template,
the next important point is how to actually set these variables. Packer
exposes two methods for setting variables: from the command line or
from a file.

### From the Command Line

To set variables from the command line, the `-var` flag is used as
a parameter to `packer build` (and some other commands). Continuing our example
above, we could build our template using the command below. The command
is split across multiple lines for readability, but can of course be a single
line.

```
$ packer build \
    -var 'aws_access_key=foo' \
    -var 'aws_secret_key=bar' \
    template.json
```

As you can see, the `-var` flag can be specified multiple times in order
to set multiple variables. Also, variables set later on the command-line
override earlier set variables if it has already been set.

Finally, variables set from the command-line override all other methods
of setting variables. So if you specify a variable in a file (the next
method shown), you can override it using the command-line.

### From a File

Variables can also be set from an external JSON file. The `-var-file`
flag reads a file containing a basic key/value mapping of variables to
values and sets those variables. The JSON file is simple:

<pre class="prettyprint">
{
  "aws_access_key": "foo",
  "aws_secret_key": "bar"
}
</pre>

It is a single JSON object where the keys are variables and the values are
the variable values. Assuming this file is in `variables.json`, we can
build our template using the following command:

```
$ packer build -var-file=variables.json template.json
```

The `-var-file` flag can be specified multiple times and variables from
multiple files will be read and applied. As you'd expect, variables read
from files specified later override a variable set earlier if it has
already been set.

And as mentioned above, no matter where a `-var-file` is specified, a
`-var` flag on the command line will always override any variables from
a file.