Automation strategy — decide whether, where, and how before anyone builds

This is the discipline layer of the automation suite. It answers three questions that come before the first node is wired: should this be automated at all?, on what platform, and is a platform even the right tool vs code?, and what orchestration guarantees does every automation have to meet so the fleet doesn't rot? No platform API, no importable JSON, no code lives here — the moment the decision is made, you route to the skill that builds it.

Building the flow (design + importable artifact) → ../automation-flows/SKILL.md. Driving a specific platform's live API/MCP → ../n8n/SKILL.md, ../make/SKILL.md, ../zapier/SKILL.md, ../power-automate/SKILL.md. A typed API client in code → ../api-connector-builder/SKILL.md. Receiving webhooks in your own app → ../webhooks/SKILL.md.

Every fact about pricing and platform capability below moves fast. Treat the ≈ figures as hedges and re-check the vendor page at author time; the honest limits (Zapier can't create Zaps via public API; Power Automate can't create end-user "My flows" cleanly via API) are called out where they matter and expanded in the references.

1. Should you automate at all?

Most "we should automate this" instincts are wrong — not because automation is bad, but because the process underneath isn't ready, or the payoff isn't there. Gate on four factors, all of them, before writing a line:

• Frequency — how many times per week/month does this run? A once-a-quarter task rarely earns its maintenance cost.
• Time saved per run — minutes of human toil removed each time. Two minutes × 1,000 runs beats an hour × 3.
• Error rate of doing it by hand — high manual error rate (typos, missed steps, missed SLAs) is often a bigger win than the time saved. Automation's real product is consistency, not just speed.
• Stability of the process — how often do the steps, the systems, or the rules change? An unstable process is the one thing that turns automation into a liability.

Rough gate: automate when it is frequent AND stable AND either saves meaningful time-per-run or removes a costly manual error rate. If it's frequent but unstable, or high-value but requires judgment on every run, do not automate yet — see below. Full scoring rubric with worked numbers: references/automate-decision-and-roi.md.