diff --git a/doc/source/operation.rst b/doc/source/operation.rst
index 911a5b7e0..0a55d40a5 100644
--- a/doc/source/operation.rst
+++ b/doc/source/operation.rst
@@ -22,6 +22,29 @@ This way if you find that a newly created image is problematic, you
 may simply delete it and Nodepool will revert to using the previous
 image.
 
+Metadata
+--------
+
+When nodepool creates instances, it will assign the following nova
+metadata:
+
+  groups
+    A json-encoded list containing the name of the image and the name
+    of the provider.  This may be used by the Ansible OpenStack
+    inventory plugin.
+
+  nodepool
+    A json-encoded dictionary with the following entries:
+
+    image_name
+      The name of the image as a string.
+
+    provider_name
+      The name of the provider as a string.
+
+    node_id
+      The nodepool id of the node as an integer.
+
 Command Line Tools
 ==================
 
diff --git a/nodepool/nodepool.py b/nodepool/nodepool.py
index c7681fb10..e3cc1fe61 100644
--- a/nodepool/nodepool.py
+++ b/nodepool/nodepool.py
@@ -425,7 +425,7 @@ class NodeLauncher(threading.Thread):
         server_id = self.manager.createServer(
             hostname, self.image.min_ram, snap_image.external_id,
             name_filter=self.image.name_filter, az=self.node.az,
-            config_drive=self.image.config_drive)
+            config_drive=self.image.config_drive, node_id=self.node_id)
         self.node.external_id = server_id
         session.commit()
 
@@ -704,7 +704,7 @@ class SubNodeLauncher(threading.Thread):
         server_id = self.manager.createServer(
             hostname, self.image.min_ram, snap_image.external_id,
             name_filter=self.image.name_filter, az=self.node_az,
-            config_drive=self.image.config_drive)
+            config_drive=self.image.config_drive, node_id=self.node_id)
         self.subnode.external_id = server_id
         session.commit()
 
diff --git a/nodepool/provider_manager.py b/nodepool/provider_manager.py
index 2c4ff3faf..b14f28d3d 100644
--- a/nodepool/provider_manager.py
+++ b/nodepool/provider_manager.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
+import json
 import logging
 import paramiko
 
@@ -360,7 +361,7 @@ class ProviderManager(TaskManager):
 
     def createServer(self, name, min_ram, image_id=None, image_name=None,
                      az=None, key_name=None, name_filter=None,
-                     config_drive=None):
+                     config_drive=None, node_id=None):
         if image_name:
             image_id = self.findImage(image_name)['id']
         flavor = self.findFlavor(min_ram, name_filter)
@@ -381,6 +382,23 @@ class ProviderManager(TaskManager):
                 else:
                     raise Exception("Invalid 'networks' configuration.")
             create_args['nics'] = nics
+        # Put provider.name and image_name in as groups so that ansible
+        # inventory can auto-create groups for us based on each of those
+        # qualities
+        # Also list each of those values directly so that non-ansible
+        # consumption programs don't need to play a game of knowing that
+        # groups[0] is the image name or anything silly like that.
+        nodepool_meta = dict(provider_name=self.provider.name)
+        groups_meta = [self.provider.name]
+        if node_id:
+            nodepool_meta['node_id'] = node_id
+        if image_name:
+            nodepool_meta['image_name'] = image_name
+            groups_meta.append(image_name)
+        create_args['meta'] = dict(
+            groups=json.dumps(groups_meta),
+            nodepool=json.dumps(nodepool_meta)
+        )
 
         return self.submitTask(CreateServerTask(**create_args))