We constantly hear that Ansible and Python are apparently the only ways to automate networks, today I even listen in a conversation "Python is the industry standard" probably I missed the RFC document or probably the guy was referring to a sales standard, but back to us what happens when the framework, the platform or the software we are using becomes heavier than the problem to solve?
There is a moment where automation becomes necessary, not because we want to look modern, not because every task deserves a framework and not simply because adding automation automatically means we are doing things better. It becomes necessary because repeating the same command collection manually across many devices is slow, risky, boring and almost impossible to diff and validate properly especially under pressure.
For this reason I built the Cisco Go Collector during a real migration activity with a very practical goal: collect configuration and command outputs from Cisco devices in an easily repeatable way, without forcing every colleague involved in the process to become developers or to install an automation stack just to run a super simple flow.
The idea was simple:
define the devices in a CSV which is the comfort zone for everyone
