Best of Automation — August 2024

  1. 1
    Article
    Avatar of hnHacker News·2y

    I've Built My First Successful Side Project, and I Hate It

    The post describes the author's journey of creating a successful side project that automatises drawing harmonic patterns on TradingView. Despite the success and financial gains, the author faced numerous challenges including maintenance fatigue, demanding customers, and handling disputes and frauds. Ultimately, the author automated various aspects of the project to reduce workload and avoid burnout, but lost interest in maintaining the project. Key lessons include the importance of setting boundaries, customer relations, and the complexities of selling B2C products.

  2. 2
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·2y

    We documented 50 common DevOps and SecOps tasks – Here’s what we learned.

    After documenting 50 common DevOps and SecOps tasks, key takeaways include the importance of effective querying across cloud resources, the impacts of numerous cloud configuration options, the critical role of security in cloud operations, and the manual nature of mitigating automated vendor billing. Blink offers a no-code/low-code platform to help streamline these tasks and create impactful automations efficiently.

  3. 3
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·2y

    I built an AI tool to handle my mom's invoices and saved her 20 hours of work! 😲

    A developer built an AI tool that automates invoice processing for a small business, saving 20 hours of manual work. The tool uses Composio for retrieving emails and attachments, Nanonets for extracting data from PDFs, and Google Sheets for organizing the information. The project leverages technologies like GmailGenius, CrewAI, React, Firebase for authentication, and FastAPI for the backend, creating a streamlined solution for managing invoices.

  4. 4
    Article
    Avatar of hnHacker News·2y

    Tracking supermarket prices with playwright

    In Dec 2022, a website was created to track price changes in Greece's largest supermarkets using Playwright for web scraping. The main challenges included handling JavaScript-based sites, automating the scraping process, and avoiding IP restrictions. After initial attempts with an old laptop failed, a decision was made to use Hetzner for its cost-efficiency. The setup integrated Tailscale to tackle IP restrictions and used a CI server to manage daily scraping tasks. Optimizations focused on improving scrape speed and cost-efficiency, like upgrading server specs and reducing data fetched.

  5. 5
    Article
    Avatar of strongdmstrongdm·2y

    Kubectl Cheat Sheet - Kubernetes Commands (Basic to Advanced)

    Kubernetes is a widely used container-centric management system created by Google and maintained globally. The kubectl command-line tool allows users to manage clusters, configure deployments, and perform various administrative tasks. This comprehensive cheat sheet covers installing kubectl, verifying installations, managing contexts for multiple clusters, core kubectl commands, and advanced operations such as monitoring, debugging, and securing access. Tips for increasing efficiency with kubectl, like customizing outputs and setting aliases, are also included.

  6. 6
    Article
    Avatar of softwaretestingmagazineSoftware Testing Magazine·2y

    Who Is a DevOps Engineer, and What Does This Role Involve?

    DevOps engineers bridge the gap between development and operations, ensuring faster and more reliable software releases. They focus on automating infrastructure provisioning, collaborating with development teams, and improving system reliability and uptime. They require a diverse set of skills, from cloud platforms to CI/CD pipelines. The role emphasizes cultural transformation and collaboration to deliver better software and achieve organizational success.

  7. 7
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·2y

    Protecting Code Quality with Trunk.io

    Explore how trunk.io can enhance your code quality effortlessly. Learn about trunk.io's main products like Code Quality, Merge Queue, CI Analytics, and Flaky Tests. Follow the steps to set up trunk.io, initialize it in your repository, and integrate it with GitHub. Automate your code quality checks with linters and pre-commit actions to streamline your development workflow.

  8. 8
    Article
    Avatar of lobstersLobsters·2y

    uv: Unified Python packaging

    uv is a high-performance Python package manager written in Rust. Initially released as a pip replacement, uv now offers comprehensive project management, tool installation, Python bootstrapping, and script execution. It creates cross-platform lockfiles, manages dependencies, and supports workspaces, making Python development simpler and faster. The tool is particularly optimized for managing large projects and ensuring consistent environments across different platforms.

  9. 9
    Article
    Avatar of notedNoted·2y

    Automate your Proxmox Homelab with Proxmox VE Helper Scripts

    Proxmox VE Helper Scripts can significantly streamline the process of setting up and deploying applications in a homelab environment. These scripts, which have garnered over 12,000 stars on GitHub, allow users to quickly install nearly 200 different apps and tools with simple bash commands. They offer both default and customizable setup options for creating Linux containers or virtual machines, saving considerable setup time.

  10. 10
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·2y

    How to scrape infinite scrolling webpages with Python

    Learn how to scrape infinite-scrolling websites using Crawlee for Python. The tutorial includes steps for setting up the project, handling cookie dialogs, adding requests for all shoe links, extracting product details, and managing infinite scroll on listing pages. The scraped data is then exported to a CSV file. The complete working code is available on a GitHub repository, and additional support can be found in the Crawlee community Discord.

  11. 11
    Article
    Avatar of softwaretestingmagazineSoftware Testing Magazine·2y

    Web Application Testing in 2024: 10 Best Practices

    Web application testing in 2024 requires a holistic approach to ensure apps are bug-free and user-friendly. Key practices include starting testing early, balancing automated and manual tests, prioritizing security, ensuring usability, conducting cross-browser testing, and leveraging real user monitoring. Documenting processes and adapting to agile methodologies are crucial, as is staying updated with the latest tools and trends like AI-powered and visual testing tools.

  12. 12
    Article
    Avatar of phProduct Hunt·2y

    Manaflow - Automate repetitive office work in tables

    Manaflow is a new tool designed to automate repetitive tasks in spreadsheets using artificial intelligence. It was featured on August 14th, 2024, and marks its first launch. Manaflow aims to enhance productivity by simplifying routine office work.

  13. 13
    Article
    Avatar of itnextITNEXT·2y

    GitOps: How We Integrate a New Service in Under 1 Hour for 25 Clusters!

    Integrating a new service at scale can be challenging, but using GitOps methodology with Argo CD simplifies the process. This comprehensive guide covers setting up an organization, inviting users, creating environments, integrating with Kubernetes, securing credentials with Azure Key Vault, and deploying through Helm charts. The automation minimizes errors and ensures a smooth integration of Otterize into your tech stack.

  14. 14
    Article
    Avatar of langchainLangChain·2y

    UX for Agents, Part 2: Ambient

    The post explores the idea of ambient agents in AI, which work in the background to handle tasks more effectively than chat-based interfaces. It emphasizes building trust in these agents by displaying their actions and allowing user corrections. The transition from 'human-in-the-loop' to 'human-on-the-loop' is highlighted, with agents being able to pause for human feedback before continuing tasks. Examples include an email assistant that seeks human input when needed. The approach aims to enhance human capabilities by efficiently managing multiple tasks simultaneously.

  15. 15
    Article
    Avatar of newstackThe New Stack·2y

    How to Create Your First Linux Bash Script

    Learn how to create and execute your first Linux Bash script. Starting with a simple 'Hello, World!' example, this guide covers the basics of creating script files, setting executable permissions, and running scripts in the terminal. It further demonstrates how to create a more complex backup script to automate directory backups, including how to set variables within Bash scripts and schedule them using cron jobs.

  16. 16
    Article
    Avatar of hnHacker News·2y

    miekg/gitopper: Gitops for non-Kubernetes folks

    Gitopper is a tool designed for non-Kubernetes environments to implement GitOps by monitoring a git repository, pulling changes, and reloading server processes. It supports sparse checkouts, SSH key authentication, and features such as metrics, diff detection, out-of-band rollbacks, and canary deployments. Gitopper does not handle package upgrades or downgrades, focusing instead on configuration and service management through git.

  17. 17
    Article
    Avatar of devopsDevOps.com·2y

    DevOps Automation: A Detailed Guide

    DevOps automation reduces human assistance in processes that connect development and operations teams, enabling faster iterative updates to production applications. Key aspects include setting clear goals, frequent automation of processes, robust testing and monitoring, and leveraging CI/CD platforms and Infrastructure as Code (IaC). Essential tools like Kubernetes, Docker, Splunk, and Ansible facilitate automation, enhance software quality, and reduce time to market.

  18. 18
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·2y

    tcsenpai/devlog

    Devlog is a tool that generates blog posts from Git commit history, offering a natural language summary of your development progress. It supports both local and remote Git repositories, and allows for customizable time periods for grouping commits. The tool uses ollama for local blog generation, ensuring data privacy. Output formats include Markdown and HTML. Dependencies are managed with uv, with detailed setup instructions provided. The project is licensed under the WTFPL License.

  19. 19
    Article
    Avatar of thedevcraftThe Dev Craft·2y

    Automatic Changelog in Github Actions

    Set up an automatic changelog in GitHub Actions by taking the diff between the latest release tag and the current tag. This process helps streamline release notes creation for continuous integration.

  20. 20
    Article
    Avatar of mlnewsMachine Learning News·2y

    AgentGen: Automating Environment and Task Generation to Enhance Planning Abilities in LLM-Based Agents with 592 Environments and 7,246 Trajectories

    AGENTGEN is a novel framework proposed by researchers from the University of Hong Kong and Microsoft Corporation to automate the generation of environments and planning tasks for LLM-based agents. This framework uses a two-stage process involving environment generation from a diverse inspiration corpus and task generation through a bidirectional evolution method called BI-EVOL. The system successfully created 592 unique environments and 7,246 high-quality trajectories, significantly improving the planning capabilities of LLMs like Llama-3 8B, surpassing models like GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in certain tasks. AGENTGEN offers a scalable and efficient alternative to manual design, enhancing the overall training and performance of intelligent systems.

  21. 21
    Article
    Avatar of phProduct Hunt·2y

    Component Wizard - Write component requirements, and get the code for it

    Component Wizard is a newly launched tool in software engineering and developer tools that allows users to write component requirements and automatically get the corresponding code. It was featured on August 12th, 2024 and is in its first launch.

  22. 22
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·2y

    AI Agents: 7 Game-Changing Use Cases Transforming Businesses

    AI agents are revolutionizing business operations by offering advanced solutions in customer service, lead generation, recruitment, supply chain management, cybersecurity, financial reporting, and project management. These digital tools are capable of making autonomous decisions, learning from their environment, and continuously improving their performance, thus providing businesses with unprecedented efficiency and strategic advantages.

  23. 23
    Article
    Avatar of lobstersLobsters·2y

    How we run migrations across 2,800 microservices

    Migrating 2,800 microservices can be daunting, but a centrally driven approach can mitigate risks and maintain consistency. By relying on a core team to handle migrations, leveraging automation, and using consistent technologies such as Go and a monorepo, large-scale updates like transitioning from OpenTracing to OpenTelemetry can be managed smoothly. Planning, transparent communication, and flexible configuration systems are essential to achieve effective, downtime-free migrations.

  24. 24
    Article
    Avatar of colkgirlCode Like A Girl·2y

    CI/CD Pipeline: Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery

    AWS developers use CI/CD pipelines to manage and automate application deployment, enabling features to be integrated, tested, and deployed continuously. The process includes using AWS CodeCommit for source control, AWS CodePipeline for triggering the pipeline, AWS CodeBuild for building the application, and AWS CodeDeploy for deploying it. Each service provides specific benefits such as scalability, encryption support, and integration capabilities, facilitating an efficient development and release process.

  25. 25
    Article
    Avatar of jetbrainsJetBrains·2y

    The .NET Tools Blog

    A developer discusses the importance of productivity in software development, advocating for the term '10x development' over '10x developer'. The focus is on leveraging tools, IDE shortcuts, and automation to significantly speed up tasks. Key techniques like the Pomodoro method and the importance of keeping things simple are highlighted. The post emphasises that high productivity should be directed towards meaningful work rather than complicating an already convoluted codebase.

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