Making things repeatable and scripting will usually be a time-saver (unless you spend 100+ hours writing the automation and never reinstall your hosts!) For me

Making things repeatable and scripting will usually be a time-saver (unless you spend 100+ hours writing the automation and never reinstall your hosts!) For me it was a learning experience as much as anything else. I'd probably have stuck with ansible, puppet, or similar established project if I didn't want to learn/experiment.