Overview

Date: 2026-05-11

Time: 15:38

Overview

This is an FTL2 AI-loop rule that ensures a Linode cloud instance named "arcade" exists with a specific configuration. It follows the observe-condition-action pattern: it observes the current state of the Linode instance, checks whether it matches the desired spec, and provisions or corrects it if not. This is part of the catbeez-arcade deployment infrastructure.

Usage Patterns

This rule is not called directly — it's loaded by the FTL2 AI reconciliation loop, which evaluates it periodically. The three-part structure is the standard AI-loop rule contract:

• observe — a list of module calls that gather current state
• condition(state) — returns True if action is needed (drift detected)
• action(ftl) — performs the remediation

# The reconciliation loop calls these in order:
state = await run_observations(rule.observe)
if await rule.condition(state):
    await rule.action(ftl)

API and Configuration

| Parameter | Value | Purpose |

|-----------|-------|---------|

| label | "arcade" | Linode instance name |

| type | "g6-nanode-1" | Linode plan (1 CPU, 1GB RAM, cheapest tier) |

| region | "us-east" | Datacenter location |

| image | "private/37121878" | Custom private disk image to deploy |

| state | "present" | Ensure instance exists |

| SSH wait | port 22, 300s timeout | Blocks until instance is reachable |

Key Behaviors

• Drift detection covers four dimensions: existence, running status, instance type, and region. If any don't match, the action fires. Notably, it does not check the image after creation — image is only set during provisioning.
• Failed observation triggers action: If the linode_v4 observe call itself fails (e.g., API error), condition returns True, treating failure as "needs fix."
• SSH readiness gate: After provisioning, wait_for blocks up to 5 minutes for SSH. Downstream rules that depend on SSH access are safe to assume connectivity once this rule passes.
• Idempotent provisioning: The linode_v4 module with state: present is idempotent — if the instance already exists and matches, it returns the existing instance without changes.

Relationships

• Module: community.general.linode_v4 — used in both observe and action phases
• Built-in: ftl.wait_for — TCP port readiness check
• Deployment context: Part of the catbeez-arcade deployment rules; likely paired with rules that configure the instance after SSH is available (app deployment, DNS, firewall)
• Linode API: Requires valid Linode API credentials, typically injected via Vault secret bindings or environment variables