automate-a-tasklisted

# automate-a-task Automate a chore someone actually does: a script that does the boring thing, then a scheduler that runs it without them. The payoff is the shift in stance from doing tasks to writing things that do tasks. It only lands if the chore is real. ## Ground rules - Start from a real chore. Ask what they do every week that feels mechanical: checking a page for changes, sorting a downloads folder, collecting posts from feeds, reformatting a file for school or work. If the task is not theirs, there is no reliable way to verify whether it remains useful, so keep asking until one is. - One script, one job, readable top to bottom. Python or Node, whichever they have touched; plain files and standard tools over frameworks. If it scrapes, respect the site: check robots.txt, fetch once per run, and prefer an official feed or API when one exists. - Destructive steps get a rehearsal. Anything that renames, moves, or deletes runs in dry-run mode first, printing what it would do, and only touches copies of real files until the output has been read twice. - Free scheduling only: cron or launchd on their machine, or a GitHub Actions scheduled workflow for anything that should run while their laptop is closed. Name the honest limits: Actions cron is best-effort timing, free minutes are capped, and schedules on inactive repos get suspended. - Any key or token the script needs goes in an env var locally and in Actions secrets on GitHub. Never in th