Script repetitive tasks

Automate the daily user creation and backup rotation tasks that the support team runs by hand. Write idempotent scripts that accept a username, role, and retention days, create the user with the right groups, rotate the user’s keys, and remove backups older than the retention value. Put logging, exit codes, and a dry‑run mode. Hand off with readme and a sample invocation.

Before I merge these automation scripts into the repo, make them easy for on‑call to trust. Surface a one‑line summary at the top of each script explaining its effect, log progress to syslog, validate inputs early, and add a safety flag for destructive actions. Highlight where human review is still required and a one‑line rollback command.

I deployed a new provisioning script that was supposed to be idempotent; it removed SSH keys for three users in production. I don’t know whether the bug is in argument parsing or in the user lookup logic, and support is already upset. What are the quickest checks and the safest rollback or remediation to restore access immediately?

We keep reinventing small admin scripts in desperate Fridays and they differ wildly in logging, safety, and testing, causing repeated outages. I want to professionalize this work. What single structural habit — naming, testing, review, or templates — should we adopt so scripting stops introducing these recurring errors?