They even embedded a JSON-based programming language! From the example at https://s3.amazonaws.com/cloudformation-templates/CloudFormationSample_WordPress.templ

They even embedded a JSON-based programming language! From the example at https://s3.amazonaws.com/cloudformation-templates/CloudFormationSample_WordPress.template https://s3.amazonaws.com/cloudformation-templates/CloudForma...: "UserData" : { "Fn::Base64" : { "Fn::Join" : [ "\n", [ { "Fn::Join" : [ "=", [ "dbName", { "Ref" : "WordPressDBName" } ] ] }, { "Fn::Join" : [ "=", [ "dbUser", { "Ref" : "WordPressUser" } ] ] }, { "Fn::Join" : [ "=", [ "dbPassword", { "Ref" : "WordPressPwd" } ] ] }, { "Fn::Join" : [ "=", [ "dbHost", { "Fn::GetAtt" : [ "WordPressDB" , "Endpoint.Address" ] } ] ] }, { "Fn::Join" : [ "=", [ "dnsName", { "Fn::GetAtt" : [ "WordPressELB" , "DNSName" ] } ] ] } ] ] } } Certainly not the nicest syntax, but I guess it gets the job done.