Book I. The Way of the Engineer and the Prayer of Production

The true DevOps does not press "Deploy". He merely lets the YAML flow through him.

v1.1 — Someone Else's Deploy

If the deploy fails and you remain calm — it wasn't your deploy. Then again, maybe it was. You just don't know yet.

Probability: 0.96

v1.2 — The Language of Logs

Logs never lie. They simply speak to you in the language of pain, and no one taught you that language at school.

Probability: 0.95

v1.3 — rm -rf / as Experience

Every rm -rf / is not a mistake. It's an experience. A short one. Usually the last one in that directory.

Probability: 0.91

v1.4 — The Flow of YAML

The true DevOps does not press "Deploy". He merely lets the flow of YAML pass through him, as a river flows through a stone without asking the stone for its manifest.

Probability: 0.93

v1.5 — The DevOps Prayer

Lord, grant me the strength to accept what cannot go to prod, the courage to roll back what already has, and the wisdom to tell staging from production by the domain name.

Probability: 0.98

v1.6 — The Friday Release

A Friday release is not bravery. It is a form of meditation upon your own mortality.

Probability: 0.88

v1.7 — git push --force

git push --force does not make you stronger. It simply makes history shorter.

Probability: 0.90

v1.8 — Two Prayers

A real engineer has two prayers: in the morning — let it all come up. at night — let no one notice that it was down.

Probability: 0.92

v1.9 — Peace After the Fall

When prod falls and you do not panic, perhaps you have grown. Or perhaps you are simply no longer on call.

Probability: 0.94