Pragmatic Automation
summary
Starts from four Google regions and an SLO like “build a location in eight weeks,” then moves from human checklists to markdown with HTML comments parsed into machine scaffolding, uses issue-tracker dependencies as human RPCs, and reuses the release toolkit Sisyphus to run automated steps while leaving a “task completed by human” button for manual work. The pipeline yields incremental automation (replaceable tasks, measured reductions in toil — e.g., ~50% if half the tasks automate), proved on Tokyo and later Zurich with Osaka planned.
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chapters (24)
- 0:00Who am I
- 1:11Cloud Expansion
- 2:13Challenges
- 2:36Problem Statements
- 3:22Automation
- 4:33Operational Amplifier
- 5:05Toyota Production System
- 6:02Automation is not a goal
- 6:40The simplest automation
- 7:03Interfaces
- 7:56SLO
- 8:37Pictionary
- 9:31The Plan
- 9:46Checklists
- 10:39Incremental steps
- 11:25Issue Tracker
- 12:39Sisyphus
- 13:27Machine readable checklists
- 14:02Machine readable markdown
- 14:40Scaffolding
- 15:15Checklist
- 16:46Incremental Progress
- 20:00Summary
- 21:03QA
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