Rick Donato

NetBox Tip! Prevent direct changes to the main branch when using the NetBox Changes plugin. Enable protect_main to ensure all changes are made through branches and follow an approval workflow. Here's an example configuration: # ./configuration.py PLUGINS_CONFIG = { "netbox_changes": { "protect_main": True,

MCP has gained a huge amount of popularity. And for good reason, it's easy to use and can allow you to really harness the benefits of LLMs. So here's a quick MCP tip! Dynamically create MCP servers with FastMCP by passing a REST API's

Background A question that came up during a recent NetBox training session was: "How should authentication credentials be provided within NetBox webhooks?" For example, you may need to send a webhook from NetBox to an external system such as: * CI/CD platforms * internal APIs * configuration management systems * notification

NetBox/Ansible Tip: The netbox.netbox.nb_inventory plugin pulls data from multiple NetBox API endpoints. Enable caching and disable unused extra lookups to reduce API calls and improve inventory load times. Here’s what you need to add to your NetBox inventory plugin file: # Cache inventory data cache: True

Use uvx to run development tools without adding them to your project dependencies. uvx runs each tool in an isolated, cached environment, keeping your pyproject.toml clean and focused on actual dependencies. Here's an example: # uvx (alias for uv run tool) # Format and lint code without modifying pyproject.

Use .filter() in Config Templates to query objects during lookups and conditional logic. This exposes the Django ORM QuerySet filter directly in your templates. Here's an example: {% for iface in device.interfaces.filter(enabled=True, name__startswith="ge-") %} interface {{ iface.name }} {% endfor %}

Typically, when working with an LLM, you send your data along with a prompt and receive a response. But this pattern often introduces issues, especially with public LLMs, due to security concerns and token bloat. There is a different pattern we can use: the Schema-Driven LLM Query Pattern. With

OpenAI Tip: If you need structured output from the LLM, use structured responses and define the expected format with JSON Schema. Here’s an example: from openai import OpenAI import os client = OpenAI(api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")) # Define the exact shape you want back. schema

Ansible and NetBox Tip: Pass Ansible group_vars and host_vars into NetBox Config Templates by sending your Ansible vars, making them available directly within your Config Templates. Here is an example: # Ansible Playbook - name: Trigger NetBox to return rendered configuration ansible.builtin.uri: url: "{{ NETBOX_ENDPOINT }}/api/dcim/