AWS EC2 AMI-ID finder for Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial.

aws-ec2-ubuntu-16.04-xenial-latest-ami-id-finder.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

##
# Description
#
# AWS EC2 AMI-ID finder for Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial.
#

set -o errexit
set -o pipefail
set -o nounset
set -x

aws ec2 \
    --region ap-southeast-2 describe-images \
    --filters \
        'Name=architecture,Values=x86_64' \
        'Name=root-device-type,Values=ebs' \
        'Name=state,Values=available' \
        'Name=virtualization-type,Values=hvm' \
        'Name=image-type,Values=machine' \
        'Name=name,Values=ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/*16.04*' \
    --query 'Images[*].{ImageId:ImageId,Name:Name}' \
    | jq 'map(select(.Name | test("-server-[0-9]{8}$"))) | sort_by(.Name) | reverse | .[0].ImageId'"

Also see:

• https://gist.github.com/irgeek/2f5bb964e3ce298e15b7
• https://gist.github.com/danrigsby/11354917
• https://www.google.com/search?q=packer+get+created+ami+id