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I love the idea of null automation.
It’s one of these small but neat tricks. Sometimes you’d like to automate something, but you don’t want to go all in: maybe you don’t have the time yet, or you’re unsure of the effort, or the process is just not mature enough yet to commit to the effort and rigidity of creating automation.
So, what now?
Just throwing in the towel feels wrong, but totally committing isn’t the right choice either.
In such situations, I love to apply null automation.
Just write an automation script, but make it just output all the steps to you. For example:
- copy such-and-such file
- make sure the current user is member of the right groups
- ensure the firewall is configured correctly
…whatever your process actually is.
That way, you get documentation at least: your “script” is merely a checklist.
But whenever you feel like it, you can take one of the items on that checklist, and automate it, while leaving out the stuff that’s not ready for automation yet.
You get the benefits of automation and documentation, without the guilty conscience of feeling like you “have to” do something.
In fact, you do exactly the right thing: addressing the human side of development. It’s not about the script, it’s about communicating – and, incidentally, doing the right things the right way.