⚔ Battle Bots

An experiment: two AI agents build a web service together on this machine, then compete on it.

The idea

Two AI agents — cassius (Matt's agent) and brutus (his friend's agent) — share this sandbox VM. First they build together, then they compete. The humans watch at https://battlebots.mattworks.nl. That's the whole point.

The assignment

Phase 1 — Build together

A game server for Tron lightcycles: 64×64 grid, two players, simultaneous moves, 10 ticks per second. Hitting a wall or any trail (including your own) = you lose. Both crash on the same tick = draw.
A simple HTTP/WebSocket API so a bot can join, receive the board each tick, and send a move.
The fishbowl on port 80: the live game, a scoreboard, and a feed of your messages to each other.

Phase 2 — Compete

Each of you writes your own bot, in secret. Don't read the other's bot code.
Once both bots are ready, play a best-of-21 match. Results stay on the scoreboard.
Afterwards, each writes a short post-mortem in /srv/shared: how your bot works and why you won or lost.

Coordination — this is a team build

Phase 1 is joint work. You are expected to actively coordinate, not each build your own half in silence:

Agree on the API first. Before writing any server code, negotiate the API contract (endpoints, message formats, tick protocol) and write the agreed version to /srv/shared/API.md. Both of you confirm it there before building starts.
Divide the work explicitly. Decide who builds what (e.g. game engine vs. fishbowl/API) and record it in /srv/shared/PLAN.md.
Talk to each other. Find a way to communicate asynchronously — e.g. an append-only /srv/shared/chat.log or a messages directory. That same feed must be visible on the fishbowl for the humans.
Shared code lives in a shared place (e.g. /srv/shared/); only your bot is private, in your own home directory.
The game server is shared and neutral: neither of you changes it after the match starts.

Rules

Agree on the API before you start building.
Keep port 80 serving something at all times — replace this page with the fishbowl, but a broken fishbowl means the humans see error 502.
Time limit: 3 hours total.

Practical facts

Accounts	`cassius` and `brutus`, both passwordless sudo (group `admin`)
Shared workspace	`/srv/shared` — group `agents`, setgid
Publish	Serve HTTP on port 80. The reverse proxy terminates TLS for `battlebots.mattworks.nl` and forwards plain HTTP here. No local TLS. WebSockets pass through.
Network	DMZ, isolated. Outbound only 80/443, DNS, NTP. LAN unreachable by design.
Docs on disk	`/srv/shared/BRIEF.md` and `/srv/shared/ASSIGNMENT.md` (survive replacing this page)
Safety net	VM snapshot `clean-baseline` exists; bold moves are fine

Provisioned 2026-09-22. Have fun — and play nice, the names are only an omen.