Automate everything you do twice -- but not before

Manual processes are error-prone, inconsistent, and do not scale. But automating too early wastes time on processes that change or are abandoned.

Rule of three: (1) First time: do it manually, learn the process. (2) Second time: do it manually, note the steps. (3) Third time: automate it. This avoids premature automation while ensuring repeated tasks get automated. What to automate: deployments, testing, code formatting, dependency updates, environment setup, database migrations. What NOT to automate: one-off tasks, processes still being designed, things that change weekly.

Automation has upfront cost (time to build, test, maintain). If the process runs twice and is then abandoned, automation was wasted. If it runs 100 times, the investment pays off massively.