runbook
also: playbook, operations manual, procedures guide
A runbook is a documented set of step-by-step procedures for operating, maintaining, or troubleshooting a system or application. It serves as a manual guide for system administrators and DevOps engineers to follow during routine tasks or incident response.
A runbook is essential operational documentation that captures the knowledge needed to manage infrastructure and applications. It contains detailed instructions, commands, configurations, and decision trees that engineers follow to perform tasks consistently and reliably.
Runbooks typically include procedures for common operations like deployments, backups, scaling, and monitoring setup. They also document incident response workflows, such as how to diagnose a database performance issue or handle a service outage, including what metrics to check and remediation steps.
Example runbook sections might include: Restart Apache Service with commands like systemctl restart apache2, verification steps, and rollback procedures. Effective runbooks reduce human error, onboard new team members faster, and ensure consistent responses to problems.
In modern DevOps, runbooks are increasingly automated through scripts and orchestration tools, evolving into playbooks (like Ansible playbooks) that can be executed automatically while still maintaining the underlying operational knowledge.