# Idempotency in amazon..aws.ec2\_instance

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/idempotency-in-amazon-aws-ec2-instance/35374>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** aws\
**Created:** [June 18, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/idempotency-in-amazon-aws-ec2-instance/35374 "2021-06-18T15:31:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tim\_Diggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f04885/32.png) [@Tim\_Diggins](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Tim_Diggins)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/idempotency-in-amazon-aws-ec2-instance/35374/1 "2021-06-18T15:31:51Z")

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Hi

when you run use “ec2” module to create an ec2 instance you can specify an id parameter to provide the client token for idempotency.

I can’t see an equivalent in ec2\_instance - there’s instance\_ids, but this seems to be used only for filtering (when searching) and doesn’t seem to be used for setting the client token.

Is there a way to set the client token / run instance idempotency for a new instance?

thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tim\_Diggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f04885/32.png) [@Tim\_Diggins](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Tim_Diggins)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/idempotency-in-amazon-aws-ec2-instance/35374/2 "2021-06-18T18:24:51Z")

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FYI My tests seem to indicate that using the instance\_ids parameter with a single id something like this will set it correctly:

- name: start an ec2 instance with a specific client token / instance idempotency id  
community.aws.ec2\_instance:  
instance\_ids: “public-compute-instance-20210610-1922”

name: “public-compute-instance”  
key\_name: “prod-ssh-key”  
vpc\_subnet\_id: subnet-5ca1ab1e  
instance\_type: c5.large  
security\_group: default  
network:  
assign\_public\_ip: true  
image\_id: ami-123456