Toil is operational drag

The goal is not to remove work. The goal is to remove repetitive work that should already be software.

Manual

Human does it

Someone must click, type, or SSH into the system.

Repetitive

Again and again

The same task keeps coming back with little variation.

Automatable

Machine should do it

The task does not require real judgement each time.

Useful boundary

Declaring a SEV1 may be stressful, but it is not toil because it needs judgement.
Re-running the same recovery script every week usually is toil.
SREs turn repeated operational pain into engineering work with enduring value.

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