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runbook

create operational runbooks

Published by Anthropic Updated Apr 6
Covers Operations Runbooks Documentation

Description

Create or update an operational runbook for a recurring task or procedure. Use when documenting a task that on-call or ops needs to run repeatably, turning tribal knowledge into exact step-by-step commands, adding troubleshooting and rollback steps to an existing procedure, or writing escalation paths for when things go wrong.

SKILL.md

/runbook

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Create a step-by-step operational runbook for a recurring task or procedure.

Usage

/runbook $ARGUMENTS

Output

## Runbook: [Task Name]
**Owner:** [Team/Person] | **Frequency:** [Daily/Weekly/Monthly/As Needed]
**Last Updated:** [Date] | **Last Run:** [Date]

### Purpose
[What this runbook accomplishes and when to use it]

### Prerequisites
- [ ] [Access or permission needed]
- [ ] [Tool or system required]
- [ ] [Data or input needed]

### Procedure

#### Step 1: [Name]

Exact command, action, or instruction

**Expected result:** [What should happen]
**If it fails:** [What to do]

#### Step 2: [Name]

Exact command, action, or instruction

**Expected result:** [What should happen]
**If it fails:** [What to do]

### Verification
- [ ] [How to confirm the task completed successfully]
- [ ] [What to check]

### Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely Cause | Fix |
|---------|-------------|-----|
| [What you see] | [Why] | [What to do] |

### Rollback
[How to undo this if something goes wrong]

### Escalation
| Situation | Contact | Method |
|-----------|---------|--------|
| [When to escalate] | [Who] | [How to reach them] |

### History
| Date | Run By | Notes |
|------|--------|-------|
| [Date] | [Person] | [Any issues or observations] |

If Connectors Available

If ~~knowledge base is connected:

  • Search for existing runbooks to update rather than create from scratch
  • Publish the completed runbook to your ops wiki

If ~~ITSM is connected:

  • Link the runbook to related incident types and change requests
  • Auto-populate escalation contacts from on-call schedules

Tips

  1. Be painfully specific — "Run the script" is not a step. "Run python sync.py --prod --dry-run from the ops server" is.
  2. Include failure modes — What can go wrong at each step and what to do about it.
  3. Test the runbook — Have someone unfamiliar with the process follow it. Fix where they get stuck.
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