---
description: |
  HCP Packer data sources query data stored to the HCP Packer registry. Use the data sources when your artifact metadata is centralized in HCP.
page_title: HCP Packer Registry Data sources overview
sidebar_title: Overview
---

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# HCP Packer Registry data sources overview

The HCP Packer Registry connects artifact factories and artifact
deployments so that development and security teams can work together to create,
manage, and consume artifacts in a centralized way.

## Introduction

The HCP Packer Registry stores metadata about your artifacts, including when they
were created, where the artifacts exists in the cloud, and git commit
information associated with your build. You can use the registry to track
information about the artifacts your Packer builds produce, clearly
designate which artifacts are appropriate for test and production environments,
and query for the right artifacts to use in both Packer and Terraform
configurations.

The following Packer data sources work together to determine and retrieve information from the
HCP Packer registry:

- [hcp-packer-version](/packer/docs/datasources/hcp/hcp-packer-version): Retrieves information about an HCP Packer version in the HCP Packer registry.
- [hcp-packer-artifact](/packer/docs/datasources/hcp/hcp-packer-artifact): Retrieves
information about a specific artifact created in the HCP Packer registry.

The following data source types are deprecated since v1.10.1:

- [hcp-packer-iteration](/packer/docs/datasources/hcp/hcp-packer-iteration): Retrieves information about an iteration in HCP Packer registry. This data source type is deprecated. Use `hcp-packer-version` instead.
- [hcp-packer-image](/packer/docs/datasources/hcp/hcp-packer-image): Retrieves
  information about a specific image created in the HCP Packer registry. This data source type is deprecated. Use `hcp-packer-artifact` instead.