Stop Doing the Same Thing Twice… Automate that task.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably tired of that one task the one you do every Monday, every deployment, or every time a new team member joins. It’s draining, boring, and frankly, a huge time sink.
Welcome to Day 1 of my Automation Series, where we learn the first golden rule of DevOps:
If a task is repetitive and predictable, it’s a candidate for automation.
Automation is not a luxury, it’s a foundation.
In the world of software and IT, we talk a lot about Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), but the true game-changer starts with a simple mindset shift.
Think of it this way: Every manual task you perform is a debt you pay with your time and energy. You also introduce risk—humans make typos, forget steps, and get tired.
Automation, especially on Day 1 of a project or process, is your investment in future speed and stability. The faster you automate the foundational stuff (like setting up environments or running basic tests), the faster you can focus on building cool features!
🤔 Interactive Question for You:
What is the single most boring, repetitive task you do every week? Seriously, tell me in the comments—we might just automate it by Day 5!
The 3 Core Pillars of Automation
You don’t need to automate the whole world right now. Start small with these three high-impact areas:
1. Infrastructure Automation (The ‘Digital Plumbing’)
Before you can run an application, you need a place for it to live (a server, a virtual machine, a container). Manual setup is slow and error-prone.
- The Tool of Choice: Terraform or Ansible.
- The Win: Create a cloud server (or an entire network!) with a single command. This is known as Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
- The Catchy Hook: “Clicking ‘Next, Next, Finish’ is so last decade. We’re building our cloud with code.”
2. Configuration Automation (The ‘App Setup’)
Once the server is up, you need to install software, configure settings, and open ports. This is another prime automation target.
- The Tool of Choice: Ansible or Puppet.
- The Win: Ensure every server is configured exactly the same way, every time. No “it worked on my machine” excuses!
- The Catchy Hook: “Stop SSH-ing into servers. We’re turning configuration into a consistent recipe.”
3. Testing and Quality Automation (The ‘Safety Net’)
The most critical Day 1 automation is running checks immediately after code is written.
- The Tool of Choice: Integrated tools like GitHub Actions or Jenkins.
- The Win: The moment you commit code, automated tests run to check for basic errors. If it fails, you know instantly.
- The Catchy Hook: “Fail Fast, Learn Faster. Let the bots find your bugs before the users do.”
Quick Automation Win: Your 5-Minute Script
Let’s get practical. You can start automating right now with a simple Bash or Python script.
Scenario: You constantly clean out old log files on your server.
Bash
#!/bin/bash
# A simple script to automatically delete files older than 30 days
# (This is your first "Day 1" Automation!)
LOG_DIR="/var/log/app_logs"
echo "Running log cleanup in $LOG_DIR..."
find $LOG_DIR -type f -mtime +30 -name "*.log" -delete
echo "Cleanup complete! Files older than 30 days have been removed."
Next Step: Set this script to run automatically every night using a tool like Cron (Linux/Mac) or Task Scheduler (Windows).
Congratulations! You’ve just automated your first IT operations task.
Your Homework (And a Teaser for Day 2)
Your biggest automation tool isn’t a script; it’s your mindset. For tomorrow, I want you to identify one common problem at your job and think about how you could solve it with code, not clicks.
Tomorrow on Day 2: We dive into the most powerful automation tools: CI/CD and why a pipeline is the heartbeat of modern software delivery. You won’t want to miss how we turn that boring, repetitive task from the comments into a fully automated pipeline!
