The Automation Habit That Changed How I Learn DevOps

When I started learning DevOps, I kept hearing the same advice over and over:

“Get hands-on. Build a home lab. Automate everything.”

So that’s what I did. But something unexpected happened along the way…

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Solving a Real Problem with a Simple Script

We work with a third-party vendor whose web portal occasionally changes without warning. These changes have caused connection issues and even unexpected service downtime.

They never notify us when changes happen.

So, I built a solution.

I wrote a small Python script that checks the vendor’s site for changes. It runs every 5 minutes using systemd timers, and if it detects something new, I get a Discord notification instantly.

That one project taught me more than any tutorial could have.

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What I Learned

This small real-world script became a crash course in DevOps fundamentals:

✅ How to use requests and hashlib in Python for web monitoring
✅ How to configure systemd timers for scheduled tasks (better than cron in many cases)
✅ How to send automated alerts to Discord using webhooks
✅ How to write, test, and deploy scripts that actually solve a problem

Most importantly, I learned that automation isn’t just about convenience.
It’s about understanding systems deeply enough to make them work for you.

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Your Home Lab Should Serve You

I used to build things in my home lab just to practice commands or spin up containers.
Now I treat my lab like a proving ground for solving problems I face at work.

That one shift—automating real problems, not just running labs for their own sake—supercharged my DevOps journey.

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Final Thoughts

If you’re learning DevOps, here’s my advice:

Don’t wait for the perfect project idea. Solve a problem in your world. Automate something that annoys you.

Chances are, it’ll teach you more than a course ever could.

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Have you built something in your lab that solved a real-world issue? I’d love to hear about it. Let’s learn from each other.