Launch and provision EC2 instances in one go

launch_instances_role.yml

---

- name: Launch new instances
  local_action:
    module: ec2
    aws_access_key: "{{ aws_access_key }}"
    aws_secret_key: "{{ aws_secret_key }}"
    region: "{{ ec2_region }}"
    keypair: "{{ ec2_keypair }}"
    group: "{{ ec2_group }}"
    instance_type: "{{ ec2_instance_type }}"
    image: "{{ ec2_image }}"
    count: "{{ ec2_count }}"
    wait: yes
  register: launched_instances

- name: Add all instance public IPs to a host group so they can be referenced in tasks
  add_host: hostname={{ item.public_ip }} groupname=launched_instance_hosts
  with_items: launched_instances.instances

- name: Wait until SSH is available
  local_action: wait_for host={{ item.public_dns_name }} port=22 delay=60 timeout=320 state=started
  with_items: launched_instances.instances

playbook.yml

---

- name: Launch and configure ec2 instances
  hosts:
    - 127.0.0.1
  connection: local
  gather_facts: false

  vars_files:
    - vars/credentials.yml

  roles:
    - { role: launch_instances }
    - { role: tag_instances }

- name: Configure ec2 instances post-creation
  hosts: launched_instance_hosts # uses a var defined dynamically in the previous playbook
  user: ubuntu
  sudo: yes
  gather_facts: true

  roles:
    - { role: webserver }