Adding Cloudformation Stack Events to SNS

Question

Is it possible to add a cloudformation stack to an sns notification from within the template. I'd like for users not to have to remember to select notification settings when launching the stack.

Alternatively can I register the stack with sns after the fact using the cli? Possibly could do it when the instance launches in my UserData script.

Answer 1

I don't know of a way to directly specify the SNS Topic of the Cloud Formation template, but one (less ideal) option would be to nest your desired CloudFormation template in another CloudFormation template, because the AWS::CloudFormation::Stack Resource type allows you to specify the SNS Topic (see AWS::CloudFormation::Stack docs) with the NotificationARNs property.