After poking around a bit more[1], my issue does indeed seem to be related to the python library symlink.
The trick was that the instructions earlier in this thread about linking from python 3.8 needs to be changed to 3.9 - probably because of macOS version differences, since it is tied to the system python. This is probably going to break again when macOS rolls over to python 3.10, so it would be ideal if the installer (either Parallels proper or the SDK) could figure out how to create the symlink properly or otherwise place/look at/in the correct location for the library.
Also helpful would be a more informative error message - "python library xxx not found at /some/path/to/a/library" rather than the more generic (and really, misleading) "the SDK is not installed"
[1] https://github.com/hashicorp/packer-plugin-parallels/issues/36
The trick was that the instructions earlier in this thread about linking from python 3.8 needs to be changed to 3.9 - probably because of macOS version differences, since it is tied to the system python. This is probably going to break again when macOS rolls over to python 3.10, so it would be ideal if the installer (either Parallels proper or the SDK) could figure out how to create the symlink properly or otherwise place/look at/in the correct location for the library.
Code:
sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/prlsdkapi.pth \
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/site-packages/prlsdkapi.pth
Also helpful would be a more informative error message - "python library xxx not found at /some/path/to/a/library" rather than the more generic (and really, misleading) "the SDK is not installed"
[1] https://github.com/hashicorp/packer-plugin-parallels/issues/36