2024-10-15 · Raj Patel

Automation Scripts Your Team Will Actually Run

automationpython

Automation fails socially more often than technically. Scripts without dry-run modes get ignored after one outage scare.

We require learners to ship three artifacts: the script, a sample inventory file, and a runbook section listing prerequisites and rollback. Tests cover parsing functions — not full lab emulation — but that is enough to catch naive regex on interface names.

Version scripts in git from day one. Tag releases when you change default behaviors. Ops teams trust tags more than "latest on main."

Finally, log to stdout in structured lines. Your future SIEM integration might never happen, but humans grep faster when timestamps and device names are consistent.