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Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

runme.dev

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Re: Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

#3

How is this better than actual Jupiter?

I wouldn't squirrel my documentation away in an ipynb file. So even though I'd like to use notebooks as runbooks, Jupyter just isn't the right solution for that. This could be a great tool for when you want to augment markdown documentation with runnable snippets. I really like this idea, it gives off literate programming[0] vibes.

[0]: http://literateprogramming.com/

Re: Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

#4

How is this better than actual Jupiter?

I wouldn't squirrel my documentation away in an ipynb file. So even though I'd like to use notebooks as runbooks, Jupyter just isn't the right solution for that. This could be a great tool for when you want to augment markdown documentation with runnable snippets. I really like this idea, it gives off literate programming[0] vibes. [0]: http://literateprogramming.com/

Another is that it looks like runme is written in Go instead of python. It's a single executable I can drop onto any new machine instead of futzing around getting a particular python version installed before doing any work.

Re: Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

#5
I made a VSCode extension to do this but never published it. All it required was that md code snippets had a language annotation/label, and that you either had a default interpreter pre-installed or could configure an interpreter.

I still have no clue why I did it NOR why I never published it.

Re: Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

#7
My company is investing heavily in interactive runbooks (their own impl) and while I kinda dislike the idea of runbooks in general this is a nice implementation.

Interactive Runbooks exist in some sort of tech-debt limbo where you have enough time to write a nice little runbook but apparently not enough time to properly automate whatever the task is. Ideally automation is easy and all change flows through a SDLC and you get all the nice things that come from that (testing for one). Instead companies build these cybernetic business processes via these adhoc notebooks to manually poke and prod production. This kinda made sense when they were these low-effort throw away things for rare events or short-term triage but now they're kinda-sorta code but without tests or reusability (or maybe you even further down the crazy well and write libraries and tests for your notebooks at which point you're really investing in the cybernetic operational model, and like, why?).

Re: Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

#8

I like the idea of this conceptually but it feels that I could do all this with github actions. Is it the interactivity and ease of changing the script that is the selling point here?

Yes, most likely. Many organisations are still tied to manual/semi-manual deployments due to company policy or regulatory compliance (banks for example).

Re: Runme – Interactive Runbooks Built with Markdown

#9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't squirrel my documentation away in an ipynb file. So even though I'd like to use notebooks as runbooks, Jupyter just isn't the right solution for that. This could be a great tool for when you want to augment markdown documentation with runnable snippets. I really like this idea, it gives off literate programming[0] vibes. [0]: http://literateprogramming.com/

Another is that it looks like runme is written in Go instead of python. It's a single executable I can drop onto any new machine instead of futzing around getting a particular python version installed before doing any work.

I'm on the Runme team, and one of the goals of the primary goals of runme is to use a shared markdown parsing engine so that there is consistent behavior between CLI/GH Action and the VS Code Notebook.
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