Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation

• donothing

  1 80 0.0 Go

  do-nothing scripting framework

The author has written a Golang version of the same as well [1].

1: https://github.com/danslimmon/donothing

• bash-timestamping-sqlite

  9 31 4.1

  bash commandline timestamping using a sqlite database for personal analytics, activity logging and auditing

> The problem happens when somebody "updates" that web server in-place.

Imagine this is 28-nginx : I would jist create another script 29-nginx-update recording the update, even if it: "echo apt-get update; apt-get upgrade nginx ; echo "make sure to fix variable $foo"

Next time I have to do that, I will integrate that into 28-nginx and remove 29-nginx-update

> eventually when someone tries the whole checklist from the beginning, they'll find it's now broken; the steps aren't working as expected.

Maybe I don't understand the issue, but my scripts or text files are simple and meant to be used in sequence. If I hack the scripts, I make sure it still works as expected - and given my natural laziness, I only ever update scripts when deploying to a new server or VM, so I get an immediate feedback if they stop working

Still, sometimes something may work as expected (ex: above, maybe $foo depends on a context?), but it only means I need to generalize the previous solution - and since the script update only happen in the context of a new deployment, everything is still fresh in my head.

To help me with that, I also use zfs snapshots at important steps, to be able to "observe" what the files looked like on the other server at a specific time. The snapshots conveniently share the same name (ex etc@28-nginx) so comparing the files to create a scripts can be easily done with diff -Nur using .zfs/snapshot/ cf https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/819-5461/gbiqe/index.ht...

Between that + a sqlite database containing the full history of commands types (including in which directory, and their return code), I rarely have such issues

Shameless plug for that bash history in sqlite: https://github.com/csdvrx/bash-timestamping-sqlite

• WorkOS

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  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

• Runbook

  2 723 0.0 Ruby

  A framework for gradual system automation

  

Braintree's Runbook seems to regard exactly this case of "Do-nothing scripting" https://github.com/braintree/runbook

• Camunda BPM

  16 3,963 9.3 Java

  Flexible framework for workflow and decision automation with BPMN and DMN. Integration with Quarkus, Spring, Spring Boot, CDI.

  

The underlying concept would be akin to Business Process Modelling.

Using something like https://camunda.com [0], you can execute a business process model. Such a model can include sending emails, waiting for responses, human action, custom API requests, etc.

Camunda is not no-code, but it comes close to what you imagine. I suspect that when the existing API landscape of a company needs to be used for workflows, coding/integration is inevitable.

There's also (truly) no-code platforms like

• runnable-plans

  1 4 0.0 Python

  A half-measure between "this recurring task is documented on a page somewhere" and "this recurring task is automated"

This is basically why I ended up writing Runnable Plans, over at https://github.com/vatine/runnable-plans/, the main differences are "you define the plan in YAML" (yeah, horrible, but better than hand-chasing a parser, that MAY come at a later date) instead of "in the script", "the plan has no inherent order" (to allow for future parallel execution), "saves success/failure to allow for later restart", and "can generate a GraphViz graph of the plan dependency ordering".

But, whatever works, works. Start somewhere, get it into a script, plan, whatever. Then, it is easier to identify steps that can be turned to entirely machine-operated.

• babushka

  2 792 10.0 Ruby

  Discontinued Test-driven sysadmin.

Thank you for introducing me to babushka style "Check - Set - Check" methodology. I assume you meant this:

https://github.com/benhoskings/babushka

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