Articles
Longer pieces on how automation actually works
Teardowns, cost models and the things we have learned the expensive way. Written for people who have to make the decision, not for search engines.
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The parallel run: the step everyone wants to skip
Testing proves the automation handles the cases you thought of. A parallel run proves it handles the ones that actually occur. What it finds, how long it should last, and the three cases where skipping it is genuinely defensible.
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Method
The parallel run: the step everyone wants to skip
Testing proves the automation handles the cases you thought of. A parallel run proves it handles the ones that actually occur. What it finds, how long it should last, and the three cases where skipping it is genuinely defensible. TeardownAutomating against a system with no API
The five routes into a legacy system, best to worst: undocumented API, scheduled export, direct database, email drop, and driving the interface. What each costs in fragility, and the hybrid most people never consider. MethodHow to design a review queue people actually use
A fifth of the work and all of the user experience sit in the component most proposals give a single line. Six things a queue needs, four patterns that reliably fail, and the training data it gives you free. MethodCleaning your data before you automate
Clean what the automation matches on and leave everything else. The four data problems that actually break builds, what you can safely ignore, and the order to do it in. Cost modelWhat a $499 automation actually gets you
Exactly what fits in the starter tier, the four things that push a job out of it, why the floor is $499 rather than lower, and when you should just build it yourself instead. MethodHow to tell whether an AI agent is actually working
Every agent demos well, which makes demos useless as evidence. How to build an evaluation set, which metric to watch, why deferral rate is the number nobody asks for, and what to ask a vendor. TeardownWhat accounting APIs will and will not let you automate
Building against QuickBooks and Xero: what is straightforward, what is deliberately constrained, how the two differ, and the four mistakes that turn a time-saver into a ledger nobody trusts. Cost modelWhat twelve common business automations actually cost to build and run
A line-by-line breakdown of the twelve automations small businesses ask for most: what each involves, what we charge to build it, what it costs to run monthly, and roughly how many hours it gives back. TeardownTeardown: the supplier invoice workflow, step by step
The complete anatomy of an invoice-processing automation, all nineteen steps, every validation rule, every failure branch, and the four decisions that determine whether it works or quietly corrupts your ledger. ReliabilityWhy automations break: a taxonomy of failure
Nine distinct failure modes, ranked by how often we encounter them and how much damage each one does. Plus the design patterns that convert the dangerous silent failures into loud, safe ones. DeliveryThe exception problem: why automation projects overrun
Exception logic is usually the majority of the engineering and almost none of the estimate. Why "except when…" is where projects die, and how to surface yours before anyone quotes. OpinionWhat we refuse to automate, and why
Six categories of work we will not build, even when someone asks and is willing to pay, including the one asked for most. PracticalThe automation readiness checklist
Twenty-four questions to answer before you brief anyone. Work through them and you will either arrive at a scoping call with a far better project, or discover you do not need one yet.No article matches that. Try a shorter word, or just ask us.
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