Best practices for host aliases?

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Hi,

Are there any generally accepted best practices regarding host aliases?
E.g. I have a bunch of similar environments (dev/stage/prod or different
customers with similar setups or whatever) where different machines play
the same roles. For example:

# inventory:

somehost1.example.com
somehost2.example.com
somehost3.example.com

[vpn_hub]
somehost1.example.com

[vpn_client]
somehost2.example.com
somehost3.example.com

# in a top level playbook

- hosts: vpn_hub
   roles:
   - vpn_hub
- hosts: vpn_client
   roles:
   - vpn_client

# in a playbook for the vpn_client role:

- name: generate vpn cert
   delegate_to: groups.vpn_hub[0]

# in a template (for the vpn_client role too)

remote {{ groups.vpn_hub[0].ansible_default_ipv4.address }}

I want neither the machine to be called vpn_hub everywhere, nor to
hardcode somehost1.example.com in playbooks, but the groups.vpn_hub[0]
is ugly. Is there a better way?

Best regards,
  Grzegorz Nosek