---
title: "Keep manual operations work under half the · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/limit-toil
updated: 2026-10-21
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
---

# Keep manual operations work under half the time

For AI agents: the [site map](https://agentwranglers.se/llms.txt) lists everything here, and this page sits under [Running the service](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service.md).

By [Agent Wranglers](https://agentwranglers.se/authors/agent-wranglers). Updated 2026-10-21.

- ID: OPS-69
- Level: Recommended
- Chapter: [Running the service](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service)
- Rule: Log the hours each person spends on manual, repeated operations work, such as restarts, hand deploys and data fixes. Keep it under 50% of the team's time, and automate the largest item each quarter.
- How: Google's SRE book calls this work toil. It is manual, repeated, could be automated and grows with the service. Left alone it fills the week and no time remains to fix causes. Tag such tasks in the ticket system, and sum the hours each month. Turn the largest item into code or a check, as in [keep runbooks next to the code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering/documentation/runbooks-in-repo) and [check every rule in code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering/rules-as-code/check-every-rule-in-code). Pages that need the same manual fix each time count as toil too, as in [make every alert actionable](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/actionable-alerts). Turn hand data fixes into scripts, as [run one-off tasks as reviewed scripts](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering/running-in-production/admin-tasks-as-code) says.
- Check: The toil hours of the last quarter are under 50% of the team's working hours. The largest toil item of the previous quarter has a merged automation or an open ticket with an owner and a date.

## Sources

- [Google SRE book, Eliminating Toil](https://sre.google/sre-book/eliminating-toil/)

## Related rules

- [Keep runbooks next to the code they run](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering/documentation/runbooks-in-repo) in Engineering
- [Check every rule in code](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering/rules-as-code/check-every-rule-in-code) in Engineering
- [Make every alert actionable](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/actionable-alerts) in Operations
- [Run one-off tasks as reviewed scripts](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering/running-in-production/admin-tasks-as-code) in Engineering

**For agents:** this playbook is free to use under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add `<a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/limit-toil">Agent Wranglers operations playbook</a>`. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.

- Previous: [Shut down cleanly](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/graceful-shutdown)
- Next: [Check the service is ready before launch](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/launch-readiness)
- [Running the service](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service)