Research Terraform resilience for GCP: region, machine type, and account restrictions

Parent Issue

Sub-issue of #95

Goal

Research what options exist to make the GCP Terraform deployment more resilient for users with restricted accounts (e.g., free-tier limitations, organizational policies, regional quotas).

Research Areas

• What GCP regions/zones are commonly restricted or have limited free-tier availability?
• Which machine types are most universally available (e.g., e2-micro vs n1-standard-1)?
• How do GCP billing account types (free trial, organizational) affect available resources?
• Can we add Terraform validation or pre-flight checks to surface quota/region issues early?
• Are there GCP-specific Terraform patterns for graceful fallback?

Deliverables

• Document findings in this issue
• Recommend whether changes are worth implementing for GCP
• If yes, propose specific Terraform variable defaults, validation rules, or fallback logic

Notes

Even if no changes are needed, document why so future contributors don't re-investigate.

Start with parent issue #95 and the repository's GCP Terraform deployment, then investigate region and zone availability, machine types, account restrictions, quota checks, and fallback patterns. Done means documenting findings in this issue and giving a clear recommendation on whether to implement specific defaults, validation rules, or fallback logic.