Stage 7 of 8 · 8 lessons · ~3 weeks

Shell scripts and automation

Turn repeated commands into small, safe Bash scripts, check them with ShellCheck, schedule them with cron and keep your own configuration in a dotfiles repository.

Start: Anatomy of a script

Lessons· one lesson for each topic, in this order

Do this

Write a script with a shebang, `set -euo pipefail`, argument checks and a usage message.
Make it executable and put it in a folder on your PATH.
Run ShellCheck and fix every warning, reading the explanation for each.
Add a loop over files and a function with `local` variables.
Schedule it with cron using full paths and a log file, and confirm it ran.
Create a dotfiles repository with your shell and Git config and an install script.
Run the install script twice to check it is safe to repeat.

Start with· follow one of these

GuideFree
Greg's Wiki: BashGuide
Greg's Wiki (Wooledge) · Beginner
A careful, accurate Bash guide that teaches the habits that avoid most scripting bugs
CourseFree
The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
MIT · Beginner
The shell tools and scripting lecture, with exercises that build useful small scripts

Practise

Linux Upskill Challenge
Later days include scripting and scheduled jobs on a real server

Keep handy

ShellCheck
Paste or run a script to catch quoting and error-handling bugs before they bite
explainshell
Check what each part of an unfamiliar command does before you put it in a script

Also worth your time

roadmap.sh: Shell / BashGo deeper
The scripting side of the shell map: arrays, traps, parameter expansion and more

Before moving on: A public dotfiles repository with an idempotent `install.sh` that passes ShellCheck with no warnings, plus one useful script of your own (a backup, a cleanup or a report) running from cron and writing to a log.

Tauseef's advice

Automate something you actually do every week, however small. A 20-line script that saves you five minutes every day teaches more than any tutorial. Run ShellCheck on everything, and switch to Python the moment Bash starts to feel like a puzzle.