AIC Phase 1: The Hidden Router Config That's Silently Breaking Your Flowstate Deployment
A developer's question reveals critical environment variable setup for custom aic_model services in Flowstate.
A developer named Young_Jeff posted a detailed technical question on the AI for Industry Challenge (AIC) forum about deploying a custom participant model as a service named `aic_model` in Flowstate. The baseline Phase 1 submission expects a lifecycle service at `/aic_model/change_state` and an action server at `/insert_cable`. The developer has a local Docker image `my-solution:phase1_basic_control_ladder` that runs correctly in Docker Compose when provided with the AIC router environment variables, but the entrypoint requires `AIC_ROUTER_ADDR` and optionally `AIC_MODEL_PASSWD` if ACL is enabled. The post explores using `inctl asset install` and `inctl service add --name aic_model` to package and deploy the image as a service asset bundle, but the core question is whether Flowstate automatically injects the router address and password, or if they must be set manually.
The developer specifically asks what the router address should be set to inside the Flowstate VM and how to securely provide the model password without exposing secrets. Related forum threads show this is a common issue, with topics about error outputs, evaluation container startup problems, and Docker Compose configuration. The query has 4 replies and 129 views as of May 2026. This points to a documentation gap in the AIC Phase 1 submission process, where participants need clearer guidance on environment variable contracts and secret management. The answer likely involves Flowstate's built-in service mesh that injects `AIC_ROUTER_ADDR` automatically, but the community has not yet confirmed this. Until resolved, participants may struggle to test their custom models locally in the simulation environment.
- Custom aic_model services in Flowstate may not automatically receive AIC_ROUTER_ADDR and AIC_MODEL_PASSWD environment variables, contrary to developer expectations.
- The intended deployment workflow uses `inctl asset install` followed by `inctl service add --name aic_model` to register a Docker image as a service asset.
- Secure handling of AIC_MODEL_PASSWD is unclear—developers need guidance on injecting secrets without exposing them in the service bundle or logs.
Why It Matters
Clear environment variable contracts are essential for participants to successfully deploy and evaluate custom models in AIC's simulated industrial challenge.