Host restart & wait-for-alive

When a KiCI agent runs on a host you are provisioning, a workflow can reboot that host and resume work once it comes back — the Ansible reboot + wait_for_connection pattern, expressed as two jobs pinned to the same host.

The two-job pattern

Host restart is a job-boundary capability: the reboot is the last step of a “restart” job, and the post-restart work lives in a separate job pinned to the same host that needs the restart job. The orchestrator holds the post-restart job until the host completes a reboot cycle, then dispatches it.

import { workflow, job, step, restartHost, waitForHostAlive } from '@kici-dev/sdk';

export default workflow('patch-and-verify', {
  on: [/* ... */],
  jobs: [
    // Restart job: apply updates, then reboot. restartHost() MUST be the last step.
    job('patch', {
      runsOn: 'kici:host:box-01',
      steps: [
        step('upgrade', async (ctx) => {
          await ctx.$`apt-get upgrade -y`;
        }),
        restartHost(),
      ],
    }),
    // Post-restart job: pinned to the SAME host, needs the restart job.
    job('verify', {
      runsOn: 'kici:host:box-01',
      needs: ['patch'],
      steps: [
        waitForHostAlive(() => fetch('http://localhost:8080/health')),
        step('check-service', async (ctx) => {
          await ctx.$`systemctl is-active myservice`;
        }),
      ],
    }),
  ],
});

restartHost()

restartHost(opts?) reboots the host the job runs on. It signals the orchestrator that a reboot is pending (which holds the post-restart job and treats the agent’s imminent disconnect as expected, not a failure), reports the step success, and the agent issues the OS reboot once the step completes.

• Must be the last step of its job — the job completes before the box goes down.
• deadlineMs (optional) overrides how long the orchestrator waits for the host to return after the reboot. The default is the orchestrator’s KICI_HOST_REBOOT_DEADLINE_MS (15 minutes). If the host does not reconnect by the deadline, the held post-restart job fails with a clear “host did not return after reboot” reason.
• The reboot command is chosen per operating system (Linux systemctl reboot, macOS shutdown -r now, Windows shutdown /r /t 0).

waitForHostAlive(probe, opts?)

waitForHostAlive() is the optional first step of the post-restart job. The baseline “the host is back” guarantee comes for free — the post-restart job only dispatches after the agent reconnects. waitForHostAlive(probe) adds a service-readiness gate on top: it polls probe until it resolves, for hosts where “agent connected” does not yet mean “services ready”.

• The probe can return anything (an HTTP response, an open port check, a marker file). Any non-null resolution means “ready”; a throw or rejection keeps polling.
• intervalMs (default 3000) and timeoutMs (default 300000) tune the poll. If the probe never succeeds within timeoutMs, the step fails with “services did not come up”.
• name (default wait-for-host-alive) sets the step name shown in the logs.

Same-host pinning

The “same host” relationship is the pin: both jobs target the same host via runsOn (a kici:host:<id> label or another label the host carries), and the post-restart job needs the restart job. Durable provisioning hosts MUST set a stable agent id (KICI_AGENT_ID) so the host re-registers under the same identity after the reboot — that stable identity is what lets the orchestrator recognise the down-then-up cycle and release the held job.

Failure behavior

• Host never returns by the deadline → the held post-restart job fails.
• Reboot privilege denied → the restart step fails with a clear privilege error (see the operator note below), and the orchestrator clears the reboot-pending hold.
• waitForHostAlive probe never succeeds → that step fails.

The orchestrator refuses to reboot the host it runs on, so a co-located agent cannot take down the orchestrator’s own box.

Operator prerequisite: reboot privilege

Rebooting needs host privilege. An agent used for host provisioning must be able to run the OS reboot primitive — run the agent service with reboot privilege, or grant a narrow shutdown / systemctl reboot permission. Agents used for provisioning generally need broad, near-root host privileges; see the operator agent documentation for the full posture.