FlowSmith · Writing
Notes on automation that actually ships
Teardowns, pricing logic and the boring parts that decide whether an automation survives month three. Written for people who build or buy these systems.
I built an entire sales site on a $12 VPS — the honest inventory
What I actually deployed on a 2 vCPU server (and what it cost), why the server is not the business, and the uncomfortable truth: zero visitors is not a hosting problem.
Read →Free n8n error-handling template (workflow JSON) — stop silent failures
A minimal, importable n8n error workflow that alerts Slack (or Telegram/Feishu) when any workflow fails. Includes the JSON, setup steps, and the five checks that matter.
Read →Invoice automation that survives an audit: the review queue is the product
A practical teardown of an LLM invoice pipeline — fixed schema, per-field confidence, human review, accuracy baseline, cost caps. Why 'fully automatic' is the wrong goal.
Read →The 5-minute automation ROI test (and when to walk away)
A simple payback formula for deciding whether to automate a task, three worked examples with real numbers, hidden costs, and the situations where the right answer is 'don't build it'.
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