10 posts tagged with "Automation"

I set out last week to begin the work of creating an automated release process for Docodylus. At first, I thought I'd end up with something similar to what's used at Intuit, which isn't a defined standard or anything, but does tend to come as sort of variations on a theme. My goal was more or less to decide how to learn how to implement an existing process, and adjust it for the needs of my project. That remains true, but the needs of my project seem to be best served by a strategy of abandoning git hooks, almost entirely.

I've been pretty lax about working in a structured and organized way in my personal projects. Some of that has to do with life just kind of being a bummer lately. Unemployment is hard. But it also has to do with I just got into some sections of work that felt very unstructured and exploratory. I knew roughly where I wanted to get to, but I didn't know how to get there until I did a lot of learning and made a bunch of mistakes. Now, arguably, that's exactly the kind of stuff I should have been documenting. But doing it took a lot of my time and energy. Today, we're where we are, and there's no use pretending we're somewhere else.

It's been a long while. I haven't been posting, and virtually nothing has changed here at IainDavis.dev. But I haven't been idle either. Since I last was regularly updating, I made several decisions that have taken a good long while to carry out, and I abandoned some structure and communication while I was doing it. In retrospect, it was maybe unwise, but at the time it felt like quite enough to be dealing with all the things I was dealing with and also be doing the learning I needed to do to implement the changes I wanted.

Over the past few days, we've built an automated system to streamline the creation of personalized cover letters using Google Apps Script. This integration automates the process of generating, storing, and accessing cover letters directly from a Google Sheets spreadsheet.

Key Accomplishments​

• Efficient Cover Letter Creation: Users can now generate cover letters with a single click, eliminating manual editing.
• Automated Document Management: Documents are automatically organized in Drive for easy access and tracking.
• User-Friendly Integration: A custom menu in Google Sheets makes it simple to trigger the entire process without needing to handle any code.

Streamlining the Deployment Pipeline​

Today, we took a major step toward automating the deployment of this site, eliminating manual steps and reducing the risk of errors.

Now, every pull request (PR) generates a preview build, and every merge to the main branch automatically triggers a production deployment. This new setup speeds up the process, ensures consistency, and minimizes the chances of mistakes.

Today, we focused on streamlining our automated preview deployment process for PRs, ensuring that each pull request includes a live preview of the Docusaurus site, Storybook components, and test reports.

The Challenge​

The main goal was to automate the deployment of a fully functional preview for every PR, complete with Docusaurus builds, Storybook, and test results. This meant dealing with dynamic URLs, managing build artifacts, and ensuring everything worked in harmony.

Why This Matters​

Automating the preview process means changes to the site are instantly available for review, speeding up development and reducing the chance of bugs. This allows us to deliver updates faster while keeping quality high.

Automating Test Reporting with Vitest and Istanbul​

As part of our commitment to ensuring high-quality code, we've set up an automated testing and reporting workflow using Vitest, Istanbul, and XUnit Viewer. Here’s a quick overview of how we made that happen.

Choosing the Right Tools​

We opted for:

• Vitest: A fast testing framework tailored for projects using Vite and TypeScript.
• Istanbul: A comprehensive code coverage tool, ensuring detailed metrics like branch, function, and statement coverage.
• XUnit Viewer: A simple way to convert XML test results into clean, shareable HTML reports.

Yesterday I posted about setting up Zapier to automate posting to my LinkedIn profile whenever I create a new post here.

I've since looked into alternatives and have moved from Zapier to Make.

This post is just a listing of some of the things I'm planning to add here in the coming days.

One of the first things my outplacement coach told me was that I ought to be posting to LinkedIn regularly. I knew I wanted to have updates specific to this website here on my blog, and I figured I'd just have to cross-post them manually.

It turns out that's not so!