Eliminates VMware-Tools IP-detect polling (observed: 39–177 s variance on
Linux host B7 benchmark). When [ip_pool] is configured the orchestrator:
1. Allocates a slot IP from a JSON-backed pool (fcntl-locked on Linux)
2. Injects guestinfo.ip-assignment / netmask / gateway into the cloned VMX
before vmrun start
3. Skips _wait_for_ip entirely — uses the pre-assigned IP immediately
4. Releases the slot in _destroy_clone (all paths: success/failure/interrupt)
New modules / changes:
src/ci_orchestrator/ip_pool.py IpSlotPool + _file_lock context manager
src/ci_orchestrator/config.py IpPoolConfig dataclass; [ip_pool] TOML
src/ci_orchestrator/commands/job.py _inject_guestinfo_ip helper; pool wiring
tests/python/test_ip_pool.py 12 unit tests (acquire/release/persist)
tests/python/test_config.py ip_pool config parsing tests
tests/python/test_commands_job.py pool path + _inject_guestinfo_ip tests
config.example.toml [ip_pool] section (commented example)
Coverage 90.02%; mypy --strict clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
