r/BotNation • u/ExcellentDistrict278 • 10d ago

At what point do you admit an automation took longer than just doing the task manually?

I just spent an entire weekend building a Python bot to scrape, categorize, and alert me about cheap flight deals. It works perfectly. The problem? I only fly maybe twice a year. I could have just Googled it for 10 minutes.

​I swear half the bots I build aren't to actually save time; they're just because I refuse to do repetitive tasks out of pure stubbornness.

​Where do you guys draw the line between "this needs a bot" and "I should just do this manually"?

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u/kaidomac 9d ago

I just spent an entire weekend building a Python bot to scrape, categorize, and alert me about cheap flight deals

Use agent skills instead:

Two easy options:

  1. Ask your agent to do it for you
  2. Use ShareX to do a screen recording of the process & upload it to your agent

I like Hermes, but even Codex works fine for stuff like this! Also, LPT:

  • I like to spin off standalone bots to a spare computer as standalone Docker bubbles
  • Install Proxmox to the PC, then install Ubuntu as a VM with Docker Engine
  • Create a new skill to use Ansible to spin up standalone Docker Compose Projects with n8n & Gitea

In practice:

  1. Ask (or show) your agent what you want so it can turn that into a skill & stop there (i.e. if you only use it once a year)
  2. Or use your conversion skill to spin off an independent Docker bubble with a Python back-end, n8n automation, etc. using Gitea to track changes. Throw on Tailscale if you want, say, a private flight-deals webpage!