Automation

Tracking work hours manually can be tedious. As a System Engineer who loves automation, I’ve streamlined this process using Home Assistant, zones, and the Clockify API. Here’s how I automatically log my work hours when I arrive at or leave my office, leveraging Home Assistant automations and Clockify’s API. Why Automate Time Tracking? Manual time tracking is easy to forget. By automating this with Home Assistant and Clockify, I ensure my timesheets are accurate and up-to-date, with zero manual intervention. This setup is especially useful because I move between multiple office locations and want a seamless integration with my smart home/work environment. ...

When automating infrastructure and configuration, two tools often come up in conversation: Ansible and Terraform. Both are widely used in the DevOps ecosystem, but they serve different purposes and shine in different use cases. This post breaks down the key differences between the two to help you decide when to use one, the other, or both. What is Terraform? Terraform, developed by HashiCorp, is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool used to provision and manage infrastructure across multiple cloud providers and services. It describes infrastructure in a declarative manner using HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) and focuses on creating and updating infrastructure components like networks, servers, databases, and more. ...