Comment 4 for bug 1954719

IMO this is certainly a bug, and the comment that users are added at first boot by cloud-init rather than "now" while correct, seems like a poor design decision. I agree that once the automated install is done, the install should be complete. There should not be any installation tasks left to perform on the next boot. If there are then, IMHO, the installation isn't finished.

I have a similar situation to @Flauschie but his workaround will not work for me.

In my particular case I am building packer images for VMWare, and those images need to have a few users preinstalled with their SSH keys. Since I don't want packer to have to deal with rebooting the VM for the sole purpose of allowing it to do first-boot installation tasks, I am forced to just start experimenting with even more detailed "late-commands" statements to manually add the users to the autoinstall target, and entirely forego using the autoinstaller to add *any* users.

Simply completing the installation without requiring a "first boot" would address both of our issues rather than requiring two different workarounds to the same problem.