Provision an Alibaba Cloud Spot ECS Instance

Use the bundled CLI wrapper to preserve the fragile ordering and evidence trail of a spot purchase. Keep account-specific IDs, IP addresses, image dates, and prices out of the skill.

Preconditions

• Require Alibaba Cloud CLI v3 and credentials with least-privilege ECS and VPC permissions.
• Treat plan as read-only and run it before every apply.
• Obtain an explicit region. Obtain an explicit SSH source CIDR when public SSH is requested.
• Explain that spot capacity and price can change between planning and creation.
• Write all evidence beneath output/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision/<name>/.

Workflow

1. Run plan to discover exact CPU/memory matches, select an available zone and instance type, resolve a current Ubuntu image, verify a disk category, and query the current hourly quote.
2. Review plan.json. Report compute, disk, and fixed bandwidth prices separately; pay-by-traffic outbound transfer is not an hourly fixed charge.
3. Run apply --confirm-create only after the requested region, size, disk, public bandwidth, SSH CIDR, and release behavior are settled.
4. Let the script create or reuse a VPC, vSwitch, security group, and key pair. Never print or commit the private key.
5. Require the RunInstances dry run to return DryRunOperation before submitting the real request.
6. Verify the returned instance with DescribeInstances until it reaches Running.
7. Report all created IDs, the private-key path, current quote, verification evidence, and remaining interruption/data-retention risks.

Do not automatically delete partially created infrastructure after an error. Preserve state.json, diagnose, and resume with the same command so resource IDs are reused.

Commands

Read-only plan:

python3 skills/compute/ecs/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision/scripts/provision_spot_ecs.py plan \
  --name batch-worker \
  --region ap-southeast-8 \
  --cpu 8 \
  --memory-gib 16 \
  --system-disk-size 800 \
  --internet-bandwidth-out 5 \
  --ssh-cidr 203.0.113.10/32

Create exactly one instance from the saved plan:

python3 skills/compute/ecs/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision/scripts/provision_spot_ecs.py apply \
  --name batch-worker \
  --region ap-southeast-8 \
  --cpu 8 \
  --memory-gib 16 \
  --system-disk-size 800 \
  --internet-bandwidth-out 5 \
  --ssh-cidr 203.0.113.10/32 \
  --confirm-create

Prefer --instance-type and --zone when the user chooses an exact offer. Use --auto-release-time for a true scheduled release; --spot-duration 1 is only a one-hour protection period.

Safety Rules

• Never infer 0.0.0.0/0 for SSH. Require an explicit CIDR for public SSH.
• Default public bandwidth to zero. A public IP is requested only when --internet-bandwidth-out is positive.
• Generate a new RSA private key with mode 0600; fail instead of overwriting an existing key.
• Use automatic spot bidding by default. Use --spot-price-limit only when the user supplies a maximum hourly compute price.
• Set the system-disk size during creation. For resizing an existing disk and filesystem, use aliyun-ecs-manage instead.
• Warn that a system disk created with the instance is normally released with a reclaimed spot instance.
• Never equate ExpiredTime=2099... or SpotDuration=1 with a scheduled deletion.

References

Read references/operations.md when diagnosing partial creation, interpreting prices, configuring release behavior, or validating the guest filesystem. See references/sources.md for the official ECS and VPC documentation checked for this skill.

Output And Evidence

• Save the resolved request and current quote to output/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision/<name>/plan.json.
• Save every CLI response and error stream beside the plan using operation-specific names.
• Save created resource IDs and recovery state to state.json; save the final normalized result to summary.json.
• Store generated private keys only below the evidence directory's private/ folder with directory mode 0700 and key mode 0600.
• Never copy private keys, AccessKeys, or credential files into reports or committed fixtures.

Validation

python3 -m py_compile skills/compute/ecs/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision/scripts/provision_spot_ecs.py
python3 skills/compute/ecs/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision/scripts/provision_spot_ecs.py --help
python3 /home/vipas/.codex/skills/.system/skill-creator/scripts/quick_validate.py \
  skills/compute/ecs/aliyun-ecs-spot-provision