HCP Packer is a cloud-based service designed to bridge image creation and deployment with image-management workflows, aiming to simplify image lifecycle management, centralize governance, and support current workflows. The service, currently in development on the HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP), will be available as a beta in the coming months, allowing development and security teams to collaborate on creating image management workflows that ensure images are up to date. HCP Packer's registry aims to reduce complexity around creating, tracking, and using image artifacts, while also providing features such as tracking image dependencies, building release channels, and acting as a data source for both Packer and Terraform. The service is expected to work with recent versions of Packer and existing workflows, requiring only environment variable settings to access the beta.