AWS Beanstalk - SNS notification to Lambda when new environment gets created - amazon-web-services

Question

I use a CF Template to create Beanstalk environments. I would like to trigger a Lambda code via SNS when an environment gets created so I can use the lambda to trigger a jenkins job with integration tests for the new environment.
Is there a way to send an SNS message after an env gets successfully created in Beanstalk? I already defined a topic the lambda code is subscribed to.
The beanstalk API allows you to define a notification endpoint.
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/using-features.managing.sns.html
But what is this for if I can only specify an email address and I have to confirm subscription? How can I use it to trigger an SNS message automatically?
{
"OptionName": "Notification Endpoint",
"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics",
"Value": "no-reply#example.com"
},
{
"OptionName": "Notification Protocol",
"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics",
"Value": "email"
},
A workaround I found is a bit hacky. I create an EC2 instance at the end of the stack creation process and run some AWS commands to send an SNS notification via UserData shell. Is this the only way?

Answer 1

I'm answering my own question. I managed to figure out how to use SNS to trigger lambda code after a new Beanstalk env gets created.
I created an sns topic service-configurator
and added its ARN and name to the template.
{
"OptionName": "Notification Topic ARN",
"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics",
"Value": "arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:273218181234:service-configurator"
},
{
"OptionName": "Notification Topic Name",
"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics",
"Value": "service-configurator"
}
Next, I set the sns topic to be an event source for my lambda code.
Now, lambda gets triggered every time something happens to an environment ( instances added/removed, env created etc.)

Answer 2

While Configuring Notifications with Elastic Beanstalk does not provide a specific example for sending Amazon SNS notifications, email is simply the default for the resp. AWS Elastic Beanstalk option setting and you can also create subscriptions for most/all other protocols, see option aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics:
Valid Values: http https email email-json sqs
Obviously AWS Lambda is not referenced there yet, but it is just another SNS protocol, so I would assume/hope that the table has simply not been updated yet and something like the following should just work accordingly (haven't tried it myself yet though):
{
"OptionName": "Notification Endpoint",
"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics",
"Value": "<Your Lambda function ARN>"
},
{
"OptionName": "Notification Protocol",
"Namespace": "aws:elasticbeanstalk:sns:topics",
"Value": "lambda"
},