This is a docs issue. This might be something that would be solved by a getting started section but I think it should be a top-level section in the main docs as well (under "Consul Agent"): "Bootstrapping"

Some open questions that aren't clear from the docs:

• I know the bootstrap flag exists, but do I run it ONLY on the first node? Can I run it on additional nodes as well?
• How do I bootstrap a cluster if they're all coming up at one time? i.e. a CloudFormation script.