Maximum Automation: Tools We Use Daily

Time is the only resource you can’t buy more of.

Every minute spent on repetitive tasks is a minute not spent building, creating, or solving real problems.

Here’s our entire automation stack. The tools we use every day to ship faster and work smarter.

Development Automation

1. GitHub Actions - CI/CD That Just Works

What it automates:

  • Running tests on every PR
  • Deploying to production on merge
  • Updating dependencies automatically
  • Building and publishing packages
# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy to Production

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm run build
      - name: Deploy to Vercel
        run: vercel --prod --token=${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}

Impact: Zero manual deployments. Push to main = live in 3 minutes.

2. Renovate - Dependency Updates on Autopilot

Keeping dependencies updated is boring. And critical.

Setup:

{
  "extends": ["config:base"],
  "automerge": true,
  "automergeType": "pr",
  "ignoreTests": false
}

Result: Dependencies stay current automatically. Security patches deployed within hours.

3. Prettier + ESLint - Never Format Code Again

{
  "scripts": {
    "lint": "eslint . --fix",
    "format": "prettier --write ."
  },
  "husky": {
    "hooks": {
      "pre-commit": "lint-staged"
    }
  }
}

Code formatting? Automated. Style debates? Eliminated. Time saved? Hours per week.

Communication Automation

4. Slack Bots - Status Updates Without Meetings

Our custom bot posts:

  • Deploy notifications
  • Error alerts
  • User signup summaries
  • Revenue updates
  • Customer feedback
// Simplified Slack notification
async function notifyDeploy(version) {
  await slack.chat.postMessage({
    channel: '#deployments',
    text: `🚀 v${version} deployed to production`,
    blocks: [
      {
        type: 'section',
        text: { type: 'mrkdwn', text: `*v${version}* is now live!` }
      }
    ]
  });
}

Impact: Everyone knows what’s happening. No status meetings needed.

5. Zapier - The Glue Between Everything

Our key automations:

New customer flow:

  1. Stripe payment → Add to CRM
  2. CRM entry → Send to email list
  3. Email list → Trigger onboarding sequence

Support flow:

  1. Email received → Create Linear ticket
  2. Ticket created → Notify team in Slack
  3. Ticket resolved → Email customer + ask for feedback

Content flow:

  1. Blog published → Post to Twitter
  2. Tweet posted → Share in LinkedIn
  3. LinkedIn shared → Add to newsletter

Cost: $50/month. Time saved: 10+ hours/week.

Content & Marketing Automation

6. Buffer - Social Media on Autopilot

We batch-create content once per week:

  • Write 7-10 posts
  • Schedule throughout the week
  • Automatic posting to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook

Time investment: 2 hours/week
Output: 30+ posts across platforms

7. ConvertKit - Email Marketing That Runs Itself

Automated sequences:

  • Welcome series (5 emails)
  • Product onboarding (7 emails)
  • Re-engagement campaign
  • Abandoned cart recovery
// Tag-based automation trigger
if (user.signup_date && !user.has_purchased) {
  addTag(user, 'trial-user');
  // This triggers our trial conversion sequence
}

Conversion rate increase: 40% vs manual emails.

8. AI Content Tools - Write Faster, Not Harder

Our workflow:

  1. Claude - Brainstorming and outlining
  2. ChatGPT - First drafts
  3. Grammarly - Polish and edit
  4. Hemingway - Simplify complex sentences

Reality check: AI writes 70%, we edit 30%. Quality stays high, speed increases 3x.

Customer Success Automation

9. Intercom - Support That Scales

Automated:

  • Answer FAQs instantly
  • Route complex queries to humans
  • Collect feedback automatically
  • Send proactive tips based on behavior

Setup:

// Smart routing
if (message.contains('billing')) {
  route_to('billing-team');
} else if (message.contains('technical')) {
  route_to('tech-support');
} else {
  try_bot_response();
}

Result: 60% of support queries resolved without human intervention.

10. Canny - Product Feedback Organized Automatically

Users request features → Automatically categorized → Voting → Prioritization

No more scattered feedback across emails, Slack, and random conversations.

Analytics & Monitoring

11. PostHog - Product Analytics on Steroids

What we track automatically:

  • Feature usage
  • User funnels
  • Session recordings
  • A/B test results
  • Cohort analysis
// Track everything important
posthog.capture('feature_used', {
  feature: 'ai_generation',
  credits_used: 1,
  processing_time: 2.3
});

Decisions made with data: 100%. Guesswork: 0%.

12. Sentry - Error Tracking That Actually Works

Errors happen. The question is: do you know about them?

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,
  tracesSampleRate: 0.1
});

Setup time: 5 minutes
Bugs caught before users complain: Countless

Financial Automation

13. Stripe - Payments That Just Work

Beyond payments, Stripe automates:

  • Recurring billing
  • Failed payment recovery
  • Refunds
  • Tax calculation
  • Invoice generation

Revenue lost to payment failures: Almost zero.

14. QuickBooks + Stripe Integration

Accounting? Automated.

  • Every transaction syncs automatically
  • Invoices generated and sent
  • Expense tracking
  • Financial reports generated monthly

Time spent on bookkeeping: 30 minutes/month (down from 2 days).

Infrastructure Automation

15. Terraform - Infrastructure as Code

resource "aws_instance" "app" {
  ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"
  instance_type = "t3.medium"
  
  tags = {
    Name = "production-app"
  }
}

Benefit: Spin up entire infrastructure with one command. Reproducible. Version controlled.

16. Docker + Kubernetes - Deployment Made Simple

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: app
spec:
  replicas: 3
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: app
        image: myapp:latest

Result: Deploy anywhere. Scale automatically. Zero-downtime updates.

The Full Stack in Action

Here’s what happens when a user signs up:

  1. Stripe processes payment
  2. Webhook triggers automation
  3. Database creates user record
  4. ConvertKit sends welcome email
  5. Intercom starts onboarding flow
  6. Slack notifies team
  7. PostHog tracks signup event
  8. Zapier adds to CRM
  9. Linear creates onboarding ticket
  10. All in under 2 seconds

Human intervention required: Zero.

Our Automation Philosophy

Automate These First:

  1. Deployment and testing
  2. Customer onboarding
  3. Data backups
  4. Security updates
  5. Monitoring and alerts

Never Automate These:

  1. Customer support (complex cases)
  2. Product decisions
  3. Hiring
  4. Core creative work
  5. Relationship building

The ROI of Automation

Time saved per week: ~25 hours
Cost of tools: ~$500/month
Break-even if your time is worth: $20/hour
Actual value: Priceless (we can focus on building)

Getting Started with Automation

Week 1: Set up CI/CD
Week 2: Automate email flows
Week 3: Add monitoring and alerts
Week 4: Automate social media
Week 5: Set up customer support automation

Don’t try to automate everything at once. Start with what hurts most.

The Bottom Line

Automation isn’t about replacing humans. It’s about amplifying them.

Every hour automated is an hour you can spend on:

  • Building better features
  • Talking to customers
  • Solving hard problems
  • Creating new products

Stop doing work computers can do. Start doing work only humans can do.

Want to automate your workflow? We help teams implement automation systems that actually work. Let’s talk →