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Delivery & Platform 90 days 2-3 hours/day updated 2026-06-01

ChatOps 90-Day Learning Path

Master ChatOps in 90 days — bot frameworks, chat-driven deployments, incident workflows, and alert routing. Bring operations into the conversation where teams already work.

What ChatOps means

ChatOps integrates operational workflows directly into team communication platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. Engineers trigger deployments, acknowledge incidents, run diagnostics, and execute runbooks through chat commands and interactive bot workflows. This brings visibility, auditability, and collaboration to operational tasks that were previously buried in terminals and dashboards.

Who should follow this path

  • DevOps engineers automating operational workflows
  • SREs building incident response tooling
  • Platform engineers integrating ops into Slack or Teams
  • Engineering managers improving team operational visibility

Prerequisites

  • Basic scripting in Python or JavaScript/TypeScript
  • Familiarity with Slack or Microsoft Teams APIs
  • Understanding of webhook and REST API concepts
  • Experience with CI/CD and deployment pipelines

The 90-day plan

Daily study recommendation: 2-3 hours/day, six days a week. Consistency beats intensity — block the time in your calendar like a meeting.

Days 1–15: Foundation

  • ChatOps principles and the GitHub Hubot origin story
  • Slack API: events, webhooks, and slash commands
  • Microsoft Teams bot framework overview
  • Bot security and least-privilege access
  • ChatOps use case mapping for your team

Outcome: Build a basic Slack bot that responds to slash commands with real operational data.

Days 16–30: Core concepts

  • Deployment bots: trigger CI/CD from chat
  • PagerDuty and OpsGenie Slack integration
  • Alert routing and noise reduction in chat
  • Incident channel creation automation
  • Runbook execution via chat commands

Outcome: Automate deployment triggers and incident channel creation through chat integrations.

Days 31–45: Tools and workflows

  • Bolt for Slack framework in Python and JavaScript
  • Interactive components: modals, buttons, and workflows
  • Workflow Builder for no-code automations
  • Audit logging for chat-executed commands
  • Role-based authorization for bot commands

Outcome: Build interactive operational workflows with role-based access control in Slack.

Days 46–60: Hands-on projects

  • Hubot and Errbot for self-hosted ChatOps
  • Webhook receivers for external system events
  • GitHub and Jira bot integrations
  • Knowledge base and runbook lookup bots
  • Metrics and SLO status bots

Outcome: Integrate CI/CD, ticketing, and observability systems into a unified ChatOps workflow.

Days 61–75: Advanced practices

  • ChatOps at scale: bot infrastructure and high availability
  • Conversation-driven incident management
  • Postmortem workflow automation in chat
  • ChatOps compliance and audit requirements
  • AI-assisted operations with LLM chat bots

Outcome: Operate a resilient, compliant ChatOps platform with AI-assisted runbook suggestions.

Days 76–90: Portfolio, interview & certification prep

  • Portfolio: ChatOps platform for incident management
  • ChatOps interview preparation
  • Measuring ChatOps adoption and effectiveness
  • Runbook documentation standards
  • Presenting ChatOps ROI to leadership

Outcome: Demonstrate a production ChatOps platform and quantify operational efficiency gains.

Weekly outcomes at a glance

PhaseOutcome
Days 1–15Build a basic Slack bot that responds to slash commands with real operational data.
Days 16–30Automate deployment triggers and incident channel creation through chat integrations.
Days 31–45Build interactive operational workflows with role-based access control in Slack.
Days 46–60Integrate CI/CD, ticketing, and observability systems into a unified ChatOps workflow.
Days 61–75Operate a resilient, compliant ChatOps platform with AI-assisted runbook suggestions.
Days 76–90Demonstrate a production ChatOps platform and quantify operational efficiency gains.

Tools to learn

  • Slack
  • Microsoft Teams
  • PagerDuty
  • OpsGenie
  • Bolt for Slack
  • Hubot
  • Errbot
  • GitHub Actions
  • Jira
  • Datadog

Labs to practice

Mini projects

  • Build a Slack bot that triggers deployments and posts release summaries
  • Create an incident response ChatOps workflow with auto-channel creation
  • Implement a runbook lookup and execution bot for common operational tasks

Interview questions to prepare

  1. What are the security risks of ChatOps and how do you mitigate them?
  2. How do you prevent alert storms from overwhelming a ChatOps channel?
  3. Explain how you would implement RBAC for bot commands.
  4. What is the difference between a webhook and a bot in a ChatOps context?
  5. How would you audit which commands were executed via chat?
  6. Describe an incident workflow that leverages ChatOps end to end.
  7. How do you handle sensitive data such as credentials and PII in ChatOps conversations?

Certification suggestions

  • AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional — AWS
  • Google Professional DevOps Engineer — Google Cloud
  • ITIL 4 Foundation — DevOps School

Browse the full certification registry for exam details and official links.

Free resources

// instructor-led option

Prefer live, guided training with mentors and certification support? DevOpsSchool.com runs paid instructor-led programs that pair well with this free path.

Explore paid training on DevOpsSchool.com ↗