Want to learn how to create an automated development workflow? An automated workflow helps you out with tasks you do when creating websites. It can help you free up loads of time, and make projects fun again. The greatest benefit I got from creating a good workflow is the removal of tedious, manual work. Now, I get to focus on the more fun parts of work like the creative tasks. I have also experienced a drop in the number of errors, simply because it becomes easier to handle work since Gulp is doing all the error catching for me. — Klaus Jørgensen, freelance frontend developer Just imagine you managed to free up one hour a day by using an automated workflow. How would you use this time? Would you create more awesome projects, design insanely creative websites, or would you spent it lazing on the couch with the comfort of your family? Now, imagine if you could free up one hour a day for everyone in your team. How much happier would they be? How much faster would things get done? What would everyone do with the extra time? Interested? Jump to the packages

So, what’s an automated workflow?

An automated workflow is a set of pre-programmed commands. It aims to help you simplify the tasks you do on a daily basis. These tasks can be things like:

Updating a file whenever it is changed so you don’t have to run a command to update it. Refreshing the browser automatically when needed so you don’t have to alt-tab and hit the refresh button manually. Letting you know what errors you made in your code so you don’t have to spend hours in frustration trying to find out what went wrong. Letting you write modular code (even HTML) so you don’t have to update that god damned navigation five times whenever something needs to change. Testing code whenever a developer merges the code to a central repository to make sure that everything works well. If it’s doesn’t, you’ll know it before any of your customers does, and you can make the necessary changes before they even know it. Optimizing your CSS, JavaScript, images and running every optimization you need to make sure your website is wicked fast. Deploying your website with a single command so you can remove the anxiety from being afraid that you’ll mess up the deployment process you can in place. and many more…

There’s a ton of things you can put together to make a superb workflow!

However, creating such a workflow is difficult.

It’s especially difficult if you try to do it yourself.

There’s a staggering amount of information out there. You have to wade through documentations filled with technical jargons that don’t seem to make sense. You may also need to go though tonnes of tutorials that are either for complete beginners, or assume that you can decode long and gnarly JavaScript code.

Furthermore, nobody seems to talk about putting a workflow together. So you’re totally on your on when you try to piece bits of information together to make a sense of what’s really happening.

The worst thing is, even if you manage to get something working, you’re still be unsure whether you did everything correctly. There’s always going to be this nagging feeling that parts of your workflow can be improved. But you just don’t know how to go from here.

If you do this alone, you’d have spent weeks or months getting to a workable solution. Do you have the luxury to spend so much time crafting your workflow when you have a deadline looming over the weekend?

I don’t think so.

So let me help you get there in less than a tenth of the time. I’ll show you everything I know about creating a solid workflow.

Here’s what we’re going to do in this book.

The web industry evolves much faster than we can keep up. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed and confused when faced this jungle of tools.

We’ll first go all the way to the basics, like learning to use the command line.

Then, I’ll show you a six-part framework that helps you organize all the tools available to you in this jungle. You’ll forever know how does each of these tools play in your workflow.

Finally, we will walk through how to put together an automated workflow, step by step, with simple to understand instructions. This workflow will do all the things we mentioned above, and many more.

By the end of this book, you would not only have a good workflow to boot, you would also have gained the knowledge to create a workflow for your personalized needs whenever you want to.

You will never again be at the mercy of waiting for someone else to create create a plugin, or a starter kit you desperately need for your projects.

Since only one person needs to know how to make a workflow, your team will (hopefully) thank you for making their lives easier. Every developer I worked with was amazed at just how much easier they can develop with a solid workflow.

The best part? You don’t need to be an expert developer to create an automated workflow.

Although great coding skills and JavaScript knowledge certainly help, they’re not a prerequisite.

We’re going to start from the basics of basics and work our way up. I’ll guide you through this entire journey, step by step, until you get the hang of it.

So don’t worry if you don’t know the command line, or think your coding skills aren’t good enough. All you need is to be interested in developing your workflow, and be willing to get your hands dirty with code.

"Automating Your Workflow" is a complete collection on how to automate your workflow. Zell goes through a difficult topic that is often partially explained by other people. After reading through the book, I found that a lot of the automation is much easier than I expected. Zell really makes an amazing effort to deliver good content in an engaging and easy to understand manner. I highly recommend "Automating Your Workflow" because it'll get you automating your workflow in no time flat! —Tom Bessems, student & frontend developer

Sounds awesome? Get 10 Chapters for free!

Ten chapters is a quarter of the book. In these first ten chapters, we’ll talk about your heart burning questions like how to choose what tools to use for your workflow, and how to learn the absolute basics of Gulp. At the end of chapter 10, you’d have crafted a decent workflow that already saves you a lot of time.