Does Pulumi have guides or tools for configuring an ec2 after launch from image? Or are we on our own with tools like ssh and fabric at that point? I'm good with that (have done a bunch of various things with bash, ssh and fabric in the past...), but hoping for something perhaps more elegant. I looked around the docs and guides but have not found anything yet. thanks

The Command provider is often a good fit for this. Might work for you as well? https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/command/#remote-provisioning-of-an-ec2-instance

That looks like what I wanted. Thanks!

You bet!

FWIW, EC2 also supports cloud-init via cloud-config in user data

thanks! You would have thought I would have found this in aws already but no...