Serverless automation + week 12 wrap

For automation that should run without a server you maintain:

- AWS Lambda — runs your Python on demand
- EventBridge schedule — triggers Lambda on cron expressions

No VM. No cron. Pay per execution (free tier covers most personal use). Cold starts (~500ms) are fine for scheduled jobs.

GCP Cloud Functions + Cloud Scheduler is the same idea. Cloudflare Workers Cron is the lowest-overhead option for HTTP-shaped tasks.

Don't click in the AWS console — version control everything.

- SAM (AWS Serverless Application Model) — YAML, simple, tight to AWS
- AWS CDK — Python / TS, programmatic infra, more flexible
- Serverless Framework — multi-cloud, mature, plugin ecosystem

For personal automations, SAM is fastest (one yaml + one python file). For team / production, CDK gives more leverage.

lambda_handler(event, context) is the entrypoint. Wrap your existing function. Read secrets from env vars (set in console / SAM template). Log to CloudWatch.

SAM template attaches a schedule. Deploy with sam deploy. 10 minutes from script to scheduled cloud function.

Lambda is cheap until it isn't.

Watch for:
- Long timeouts → memory * duration explodes
- Calling other paid APIs in a loop
- CloudWatch log retention (default = forever, costs add up)
- VPC-attached Lambdas (cold starts + ENI creation)

Set a CloudWatch budget alarm at $5/month. If a runaway hits, you find out before the bill does.

Week 12 done. 84 days, 420 posts in.

This week:
- HTTP scraping done politely
- Playwright when JS demands
- cron / APScheduler / Airflow
- Slack + email notifications
- PDF + Excel automations
- API integrations with retries
- Serverless cron with Lambda

Next week (final): build, ship, career. The 6-day wrap-up to land what you've learned.