I mean, you're not wrong, but it'd be quite a task, even moreso to have robust error handling and tests. I say this as someone who deeply loves shell scripts.

I mean, you're not wrong, but it'd be quite a task, even moreso to have robust error handling and tests. I say this as someone who deeply loves shell scripts. Case in point, I'm in the midst of writing a massive Ansible playbook that builds highly specialized AMIs with EC2 Image Builder via Terraform. It could just as easily be used with Packer, to your point. Some parts of it are monotonous, some parts of it are mind-bending, but all of it is more correct and idempotent than the myriad of scripts and runbacks it's replacing.