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wtf is knife-wip?

mrtazz/knife-wip — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-17 · repo last pushed 2014-10-03

★ 9RubyAudience · ops devopsComplexity · 2/5DormantSetup · easy

TL;DR

A Chef Knife plugin that lets ops teams tag servers as 'work in progress' so nobody steps on a manual debugging session.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((knife-wip))
    What it does
      Tags servers in progress
      Tracks who and why
      Removes tag when done
    Tech stack
      Ruby
      Chef
      Knife plugin
    Use cases
      Coordinate manual server debugging
      Check before deploying
      Trigger Slack notifications
    Audience
      Ops teams
      Chef users
    Config
      Plugin system
      Custom actions on start stop

Code map

Detail Auto

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filefunction / class

Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Tag a server as work-in-progress with your username and reason before manually debugging it.

REASON 2

List all servers currently flagged as in-progress before starting a deploy.

REASON 3

Search Chef server tags to see what's actively being worked on across the fleet.

REASON 4

Trigger a Slack notification or log entry automatically when someone starts or stops work on a server.

What's in the stack?

RubyChefKnife

How it stacks up

mrtazz/knife-wipkrausefx/brewfileefforg/onlinecensorship
Stars9910
LanguageRubyRubyRuby
Last pushed2014-10-032017-03-092021-07-20
MaintenanceDormantDormantDormant
Setup difficultyeasyeasymoderate
Complexity2/51/53/5
Audienceops devopsdeveloperresearcher

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires an existing Chef server and Knife setup.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to use knife-wip to tag a Chef-managed server as work-in-progress with my name and a description.
Prompt 2
Write a knife-wip plugin that posts a Slack notification whenever someone starts or stops work on a server.
Prompt 3
How do I search Chef server tags to list every server currently marked as work-in-progress?
Prompt 4
Explain how knife-wip integrates with Chef's built-in tagging system so I can extend it for my team's tools.

Frequently asked questions

wtf is knife-wip?

A Chef Knife plugin that lets ops teams tag servers as 'work in progress' so nobody steps on a manual debugging session.

What language is knife-wip written in?

Mainly Ruby. The stack also includes Ruby, Chef, Knife.

Is knife-wip actively maintained?

Dormant — no commits in 2+ years (last push 2014-10-03).

How hard is knife-wip to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is knife-wip for?

Mainly ops devops.

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