Untangling an automation rat's nest
A live teardown of a real 47-step workflow. We refactor it down to 11 and explain every cut.
Ops leaders, founders, and engineering managers maintaining an automation stack nobody fully understands.
What you will take away
- The seam test we run before shipping any new automation
- Where logic should live and where it should not
- Workflow tool versus code: the actual cut
- The strangler pattern for cleaning a rat's nest without a rewrite
Agenda
Most ops automation stacks grow into a rat's nest one quick win at a time. By the time someone notices, there are 47 Zaps, three Make scenarios, two Airtable bases, and a Slack bot whose author has left the company.
This recording is the live teardown of one of those stacks, anonymized with permission. We map it on screen, refactor it down to eleven steps, and explain every cut.
What you will see
The seam test we run on every new automation. The cut between workflow tool and code, with examples from the actual stack. The strangler pattern that lets you clean up a rat's nest without a big rewrite.
You will also see the registry we keep on every client project. One markdown file in the repo, listing every automation, where it lives, what fires it, and what it does. It sounds boring. It is the single highest-leverage discipline in keeping an automation stack maintainable.
Want yours mapped and rebuilt?
If your team has an automation stack nobody fully understands, the call is thirty minutes. We map what you have on a single page and tell you what should stay, what should move, and what to kill.
Frequently asked questions
Is this only for teams using Zapier?+
No. The pattern applies whether your stack is Zapier, Make, n8n, or custom server functions. The rules about where logic lives are tool-agnostic.
Do I have to rebuild everything to follow the patterns?+
No. The strangler pattern is exactly the alternative. New automations go into the clean stack, existing ones move when they break or change. Within six months the rat's nest is gone with no big rewrite.
Can you do this on our actual stack?+
Yes. We run automation audits as a fixed-scope engagement. The output is a one-page map and a prioritized cleanup plan.
More sessions
Got an idea? We can ship it next week.
30-minute discovery call. We tell you what's possible, what it costs, and when it ships.