I’m trying to pass a map of string into ansible provisioner in packer.

{
alex = "alexano"
bob = "bobvim"
}

I came across this question How to set a variable as a list in Packer and use it as a reference but it exits with error ansible-playbook: error: unrecognized arguments: {ssh_users:bob:bob-vim}

What is the correct way to pass a map of string using --extra-vars in packer?

provisioner "ansible-local" {
    playbook_dir = "./ansible"
    playbook_file = "./ansible/ami_9_x86_64.yaml"
    galaxy_file   = "./ansible/requirements.yaml"
    only          = ["amazon-ebs.bastion-server"]
    extra_arguments = [
      "-vv",
      "--extra-vars",
      jsonencode({ "ssh_users" = var.ssh_users}),
    ]
}

Here’s a packer build command output snippet(truncated for brevity).

Executing Ansible:
ansible-playbook /tmp/packer-provisioner-ansible-local/*************/ami_9_x86_64.yaml 
   --extra-vars "packer_build_name=bastion-server packer_builder_type=amazon-ebs 
   packer_http_addr=ERR_HTTP_ADDR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED_BY_BUILDER -o IdentitiesOnly=yes" 
   -vv --extra-vars {"ssh_users":{"alex":"alex-nano","bob":"bob-vim"}} -c local 
   -i /tmp/packer-provisioner-ansible-local/********/packer-provisioner-ansible-local2248890322