How do I use terraform output as AWS orb input parameters for a circleCI workflow?

Question

A common flow for setting up terraform/aws CI deployments is to use terraform to deploy your infrastructure and circle to handle deployments to AWS. Most examples I have seen using this flow will manually take the outputs from running terraform apply and store those values in CircleCI Environment Variables which can then be referenced in CircleCI jobs. Instead what I want to know is how I can run terraform output to get the values I want and then use those values as parameters when passing into a circleCI orb.

First thing I looked for was an existing Terraform CircleCI orb. Hashicorp has an official orb which is nice but it doesn't support the output command. I could maybe try an apply job that targets nothing to get a similar result but instead I just created a circlCI job which will install and run the command I want.

  retrieve-terraform-params:
    parameters:
      dir:
        type: string
        default: "."
      service:
        type: string
        default: ""
    executor: python
    resource_class: small
    environment:
      DIR: << parameters.dir >>
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run:
          name: Parse Parameter and write to environment variable 
          command: |
            cd ${DIR}
            sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y gnupg software-properties-common
            wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | \
                gpg --dearmor | \
                sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
            gpg --no-default-keyring \
                --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg \
                --fingerprint
            echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] \
                https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | \
                sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
            sudo apt update
            sudo apt-get install terraform
            terraform init
            terraform output > tf.outputs

Now I have a CircleCI orb which takes in parameters for aws deployments which is looking for the following:

 - retrieve-terraform-params:
      dir: ./service/terraform/
 - ecs/ecs-deploy:
      name: deploy-stuff
      launch-type: FARGATE
      listener-arn: "arn:..."
      blue-target-group: "arn:..."
      green-target-group: "arn:..."
      requires:
        - retrieve-terraform-params

Those arns are in my tf.outputs I created with my retrieve-terraform-params job. What I want to know is whether or not there is a way of getting the values from tf.outputs in my first job used as parameters for my second job when the second job is an orb I did not write.

The approaches I have tried: First Approach) Parse the values of tf.outputs into environment variables and reference those environment variables in my workflow. Command for tf job:

...
cat tf.outputs | while read p; 
do IN=$p; 
arrIN=(${IN//=/ }); 
nvar="${arrIN[0]^^}";
export ${nvar}=${arrIN[1]};
echo "export ${nvar}='${arrIN[1]}'";
done

And then in my workflow:

 - ecs/ecs-deploy:
      name: deploy-stuff
      launch-type: FARGATE
      listener-arn: ${VAR1}
      blue-target-group: ${VAR2}
      green-target-group: ${VAR3}
      requires:
        - retrieve-terraform-params

Result: The value of my parameters VAR1,2,3 were always blank, I suspect this is due to searching circle for environment variables rather than using the ones created on the instance.

Second Approach) Parse the values of tf.outputs into circleci pipeline parameters which are used as input for my orb

parameters:
  VAR1:
    type: string
    default: ""
...
 - ecs/ecs-deploy:
      name: deploy-stuff
      launch-type: FARGATE
      listener-arn: << pipeline.parameters.VAR1 >>
      blue-target-group: << pipeline.parameters.VAR2 >>
      green-target-group: << pipeline.parameters.VAR3 >>
      requires:
        - retrieve-terraform-params

Result: I couldn't a way of writing to those pipeline values from within a job. only accessing them.

So now I am stuck wondering if I instead need to create a new job which imitates the existing orb I am using. Any help would be appreciated.