Instances

An instance is a single running copy of a service. If you have scale: 3, you have 3 instances. They’re created and destroyed by the reconciler — you never create one directly.

Identity

Each instance has:

• A stable ID like api-instance-7c2e8a3b.
• A reference back to its service and generation.
• A runner type (docker or process).
• A state (Pending, Starting, Running, Unhealthy, Stopping, Stopped, Failed).
• The node it’s running on (single-node today; multi-node tomorrow).

rune get instances
rune get instance api-instance-7c2e8a3b -o yaml

Lifecycle

Pending → Starting → Running ──┬──▶ Unhealthy → Stopping → Stopped
                               │
                               └──▶ Stopping → Stopped
                                                   │
                                                   └─▶ (replaced if scale unchanged)

The reconciler will replace failing instances automatically. Permanent failures (e.g., image pull errors that don’t resolve) bubble up to the service status.

Operations on instances

Action	Command
Logs	rune logs <instance-id>
Exec	rune exec <instance-id> bash
Health	rune health instance <instance-id> --checks
Inspect	rune get instance <instance-id> -o yaml
Kill	rune delete instance <instance-id>

Killing an instance returns it to the reconciler, which replaces it. Don’t use that as “scale up” — use rune scale.

Instance vs. service in commands

Most commands accept either a service name or an instance ID. Some, like exec, attach to a specific instance — if you pass a service name, Rune picks one for you.

rune exec api bash             # picks any healthy instance of 'api'
rune exec api-instance-7c2e bash   # specific instance

Per-instance state

Each instance carries:

• Conditions[] — point-in-time check results (Ready, Healthy, ImagePulled, etc.).
• Restarts — how many times the runner has restarted it.
• LastFailureMessage — last error from the runner.
• StartedAt / FinishedAt.

Use rune get instance <id> -o yaml to read all of it. The most useful field for debugging is LastFailureMessage.