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I Replaced Our Entire On-Call Rotation With 4 Python Scripts

#python #devops #automation #sre

I Replaced Our Entire On-Call Rotation With 4 Python Scripts

Last month, our on-call rotation was burning people out. 3 AM pages, false alarms, and nobody getting real sleep. So I automated the boring parts and kept the human judgment where it matters.

Here is exactly what I built.

Script 1: Smart Alert Triage

Not every alert deserves a 3 AM wake-up. This script classifies alerts by severity and only pages humans for P0/P1 issues.

def triage_alert(alert):
    severity_map = {
        "db_down": "P0",
        "api_5xx_rate": "P1",
        "disk_80pct": "P2",
        "ssl_renew_30d": "P3"
    }
    severity = severity_map.get(alert["type"], "P3")
    if severity in ["P0", "P1"]:
        page_human(alert, severity)
    else:
        queue_for_morning(alert, severity)
    return severity
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Script 2: Auto-Rollback Detector

If a deployment causes error rates to spike within 5 minutes, automatically roll back.

def check_deployment_health(version, baseline_error_rate):
    current_rate = get_error_rate(minutes=5)
    if current_rate > baseline_error_rate * 3:
        rollback(version)
        notify_team(f"Auto-rolled back {version}: error rate {current_rate} vs baseline {baseline_error_rate}")
        return True
    return False
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Script 3: Incident Post-Mortem Generator

After every incident, this script collects timeline data, affected services, and resolution steps — then drafts a post-mortem template.

Script 4: Capacity Predictor

Analyzes traffic patterns and predicts when we will hit resource limits, so we can scale before it becomes an incident.

The Result

  • 3 incidents handled automatically while I slept
  • 80% reduction in false alarm pages
  • Zero burnout from the on-call rotation
  • 4 hours saved per week on incident admin

Get the Complete Automation Pack

These 4 scripts are part of our Automation Starter Pack — 25+ production-ready Python scripts for ops teams.

Get the complete pack with documentation, tests, and deployment guides:

What is your biggest on-call pain point? Let me know in the comments!

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