feat(cluster): zero-config horizontal scaling by cloning

An instance decides what it is at startup instead of being told: it
generates its own identity, registers a heartbeat, and campaigns for
each game. Exactly one instance drives a game's rounds and publishes
frames; the rest relay them and forward mutations to the leader. Clone
the VM, boot it, done.

Sessions and the scratch nonce move to Redis. Both were per-instance
state that would have broken behind a load balancer: a token minted by
one clone was unknown to the others, and two clones would have handed
the same nonce to different players, which for the same key means the
same outcome.

Fixes a bug found by running two instances: /api/games read the local
room object, so a follower reported a permanently settled game and its
clients never saw a betting window. Hubs now serve the last frame they
saw, produced or relayed.

Failover measured at 6s after kill -9 on an instance leading two games.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
drjones
2026-08-05 23:07:47 +00:00
parent 038550b6ff
commit c12640cf52
10 changed files with 1306 additions and 40 deletions

127
docs/SCALING.md Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
# Scaling by cloning
The app is stateless. To serve more players, clone the app VM and boot it.
An instance works out what it is on startup: it generates its own identity,
registers itself, and negotiates which games it drives. Nothing is assigned by
hand, and no file needs editing after a clone.
## What runs where
| VM | Runs | How many |
|---|---|---|
| **core** | PostgreSQL + Redis + Caddy | exactly one |
| **app** | `quantum-arcade` | **clone this one** |
| **lightning** | Alby Hub | one, firewalled |
**Do not clone the core VM.** If each app clone brings its own PostgreSQL and
Redis, the clones share nothing: separate ledgers, separate rounds, mutually
invisible. The app VM must contain *only* the arcade binary.
Keep Alby Hub separate from the app. The app VMs are what every phone talks to;
the Lightning node holds keys and channel state. Separation is what makes a
compromised app instance survivable — it holds a budget-capped credential, not
the node.
## Configuring a clone
Two variables, both pointing at the core VM:
```bash
ARCADE_DSN=postgres://arcade:PASSWORD@10.0.0.10:5432/arcade
ARCADE_REDIS=10.0.0.10:6379
```
Optionally, if the instance's routable address cannot be detected (multiple
NICs, NAT):
```bash
ARCADE_ADVERTISE=10.0.0.21:8080
```
Otherwise it advertises the first non-loopback IPv4 address it finds, which is
correct on a normal Proxmox bridge with DHCP.
Everything else — instance id, which games it drives, which peers exist — is
determined at runtime.
## How instances divide the work
Each game is driven by exactly one instance at a time.
- On startup an instance **campaigns** for each game: a Redis key set with
`SET NX PX`, held for `LeaseTTL` (6s) and renewed every 2s.
- The winner runs that game's round loop, settles to the ledger, and publishes
every frame to Redis.
- Every other instance **relays** those frames to its own connected clients.
A client cannot tell which instance it is attached to.
- Bets and cash-outs arriving at a non-leader are **forwarded** to the leader,
because only the leader holds the authoritative round state. Sessions live in
Redis, so a token issued anywhere is accepted everywhere and the forwarded
request authenticates normally.
Leadership spreads itself across instances naturally: whichever instance
campaigns first for a given game gets it, so three games across two instances
lands roughly 2/1.
## Failure
An instance dying is not a special case. Its lease stops being renewed, expires
within `LeaseTTL`, and the next campaign hands its games to a survivor.
Measured with a hard `kill -9` on an instance leading two of three games:
```
t+0s killed
t+6s both games taken over, rounds running
```
Six seconds, unattended. Players attached to the dead instance reconnect
through the load balancer and rejoin whichever instance answers.
The in-flight round on the dead instance is lost — bets already written to the
ledger stand, and the round simply never settles. This is the one rough edge:
stakes are debited at bet time, so a round lost mid-flight leaves those stakes
with the house. A reconciliation job that refunds unsettled rounds is not yet
built.
## Load balancing
Caddy needs no sticky sessions — any instance serves any request.
```
arcade.lan {
reverse_proxy 10.0.0.21:8080 10.0.0.22:8080 10.0.0.23:8080 {
lb_policy least_conn
health_uri /api/health
health_interval 5s
}
}
```
`least_conn` suits long-lived WebSockets better than round-robin, which
distributes connection *attempts* rather than connections.
## Watching the fleet
```bash
curl -s http://arcade.lan/api/cluster | jq
```
Returns every registered instance, which one drives each game, and which
instance answered. Useful for confirming a clone joined, and for watching
leadership move during a failover.
## Where this stops scaling
Adding app clones raises the ceiling on connections and fan-out. It does not
raise these:
- **Bet throughput**, measured at ~230/sec, is bounded by PostgreSQL commit
cost. Every clone contends for the same database. Getting past this needs
in-memory balance reservation with batched persistence — a change to how
money is held, not a deployment change.
- **A single game's round loop** runs on one instance, by design. A game cannot
be split across instances without a distributed clock.
So: clone freely for more spectators and more connections. For more *bets per
second*, the database is the thing to work on.