How can I get the compute instance ID from within its operating system environment?

While there currently isn't a direct way to retrieve the instance ID without relying on the Linode API externally, there are some potential workarounds to accomplish this:

1. Cloud Manager: The Linode ID can be found in the Cloud Manager. Simply access the Cloud Manager interface, and you'll see the Linode ID displayed alongside the region and creation date of your compute instance.

2. Linode API: As you mentioned, utilizing the Linode API is another viable option. By programmatically interacting with the API, you can retrieve the Linode ID. The Linode API documentation provides details on how to achieve this.

3. Linode StackScripts: By default, StackScripts offer four environment variables which can be called upon during Linode provisioning: LINODE_ID, LINODE_LISHUSERNAME, LINODE_RAM, and LINODE_DATACENTERID. For example, you could set an environment variable named linode_id and assign it the corresponding $LINODE_ID. This way, you can easily reference the Linode ID from within the operating system. Keep in mind, this would only apply to compute instances generated with the StackScript. Here's a basic example script:

#!/bin/bash

# Retrieve the Linode ID from the environment variable
linode_id="$LINODE_ID"

# Write the Linode ID to a file
echo "Linode ID: $linode_id" > linode-id.txt

Thanks! This solved my problem. I was under the wrong assumption that the LINODE_ID environment variable would be automatically available per the tip that was shown in the StackScripts editor.