I add a chef mysqld receipt to the Vagrant file and here is the error from vagrant up:

    ==> default: Required argument password is missing!
    ==> default:
    ==> default: Cookbook Trace:
    ==> default: ---------------
    ==> default:   /tmp/vagrant-chef/3aa2e36871bb373e4212367ce1b7d9af/cookbooks/mysqld/recipes/configure.rb:26:in `block in from_file'
    ==> default:   /tmp/vagrant-chef/3aa2e36871bb373e4212367ce1b7d9af/cookbooks/mysqld/recipes/configure.rb:25:in `from_file'
    ==> default:   /tmp/vagrant-chef/3aa2e36871bb373e4212367ce1b7d9af/cookbooks/mysqld/recipes/default.rb:22:in `from_file'
    ==> default:
    ==> default: Relevant File Content:
    ==> default: ----------------------
    ==> default: /tmp/vagrant-chef/3aa2e36871bb373e4212367ce1b7d9af/cookbooks/mysqld/recipes/configure.rb:
    ==> default:
    ==> default:  19:  #
    ==> default:  20:
    ==> default:
    ==> default:  21:  # Configure mysql/mariadb according to attributes
    ==> default:  22:  mysqld 'default'
    ==> default:  23:
    ==> default:  24:  # Set password according to attribute, if set
    ==> default:  25:  mysqld_password 'root' do
    ==> default:  26>>   password node['mysqld']['root_password']
    ==> default:
    ==> default:  27:    only_if { node['mysqld']['root_password'] }
    ==> default:  28:  end
    ==> default:  29:

Solution: Add this to set the root_password:

chef.json = {
  :mysqld   => {
    :root_password => "test"
  }
}

Now you can connect to the mysql server by running

 mysql -u root -p