What is a Runbook? Improve Efficiency and Incident Response

IT complexity expands every year, nudging up the possibility of unforeseen consequences, such as outages and other disruptions to operations. Runbooks are a great way to ensure your team knows exactly what to do when incidents arise.

When we asked senior leaders in software for our State of Production Readiness report, we found that 42% of respondents identified runbooks as a key feature of their production readiness process. This blog will explain what a runbook is and how to use it, as well as the benefits of using runbooks and some tips for building them. Whether you're a DevOps engineer looking to automate processes, a systems administrator managing recovery processes or a software engineer reviewing onboarding best practice, this blog should have something for you.

What is a runbook?

A runbook is a standardized document or set of procedures that outlines step-by-step instructions for carrying out routine operations or handling specific scenarios in IT environments. For a chef, a runbook might equate to a recipe book for cooking staple dishes, or instructions for how to replace an oven in the kitchen. For a sports coach it could be the list of plays used in different scenarios during a game, or the checklist for how the team prepares for a game on the road. For developers, a runbook could be a list of commands to debug a service, or a series of escalation steps when a server goes down.

Runbooks are important because they make knowledge easily actionable for someone without domain expertise. This ensures, for example, that the engineer who created the service doesn’t need to be the first line of defense in the event of an outage. Instead, if they create a runbook, anyone else can pick it up and take the right steps to fix the problem. Codifying this knowledge into a runbook makes services more efficient, consistent and standardized.This is especially necessary in a crisis situation where time is of the essence and relying on the availability of a particular person simply doesn’t scale.

To be effective, runbooks must be living documents that are updated regularly. Processes change over time, and runbooks need to reflect these changes. By encoding the most relevant and recent expert knowledge, runbooks can help you to avert a crisis.

Different types of runbook

Runbooks come tailored for specific scenarios to ensure efficient and effective IT operations. The most common runbook types:

Procedural Runbooks

These runbooks provide detailed, step-by-step instructions for performing routine or recurring tasks, such as system backups, software deployments, or user onboarding. They ensure consistency and accuracy in operations, reducing the likelihood of errors.

Troubleshooting Runbooks

When you are trying to diagnose and resolve issues or errors quickly you need a troubleshooting runbooks. Engineers use these to swiftly address disruptions and minimize downtime by accessing diagnostic steps, common error messages, and corresponding fixes for known problems.

Disaster Recovery Runbooks

Disaster recovery runbooks outline the processes and protocols for restoring systems and data after catastrophic events like natural disasters, cyber-attacks, or major system failures. By helping your business to get back on track quickly and efficiently, these runbooks are critical for minimizing the impact of severe incidents.

You will also find specialized runbooks such as security runbooks, which focus on handling security breaches and implementing protective measures, and compliance runbooks, which guide team members through tasks required to meet regulatory standards and audits. Change management runbooks outline procedures for implementing and documenting system changes, while performance optimizing runbooks provide steps for tuning and improving system performance. Each type of runbook plays a vital role in maintaining the overall health and reliability of IT systems.

Runbook vs playbook

Where runbooks are specific instructions for a defined operation, playbooks are more strategic documents, operating at a higher level of abstraction. Runbooks cover processes, while playbooks outline the overall response plan for a category of incident. If a runbook is instructions on how to cook a specific dish, then a playbook is the full set of instructions, themes and inspirations behind a seasonal menu.

For more on this, check out our blog post on the topic.

What should be included in a runbook?

Well-structured runbook templates include several essential elements in order to be effective and useful. The best runbooks are those that exist, so having them available and accessible is an important starting point. They should also be actionable, with well-defined steps that guide the user through all common outcomes. And of course they must be accurate and up-to-date: useful to those without domain knowledge and regularly updated when functionality changes or outages reveal new information.

Clear title and version control

A clear title helps users quickly identify the purpose of the runbook, while version control ensures that everyone is using the latest and most accurate information. Keeping track of changes is crucial for maintaining consistency and reliability while reassuring users that they are following the most current procedures.

Table of contents

These allow users to navigate the runbook easily, especially when dealing with lengthy documents. It improves accessibility, providing a quick overview that helps engineers find specific sections or procedures quickly.

Prerequisites

Listing prerequisites clarifies any required tools, permissions, or preliminary steps needed before executing the procedures. This ensures that users have everything they need to follow the instructions without interruptions.

Detailed Procedures

Specifying detailed procedures provides step-by-step instructions for completing operational tasks or resolving issues. This precision reduces the risk of errors and ensures consistency in execution, regardless of who performs the specific task.

Screenshots/Diagrams

Incorporating visual aids like screenshots and diagrams improves communication and enhances clarity. These provide visual context to the written instructions, making it easier to follow complex procedures.

Troubleshooting Steps

Guidance on troubleshooting helps users to diagnose and resolve common issues that may arise during the execution of the procedures. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and helps users resolve problems quickly without escalation.

Contact Information

Providing contact information ensures that users can reach out for additional support if needed. This is particularly important for addressing unexpected challenges or clarifying ambiguous instructions.

For more information on creating “developer-friendly” runbooks, check out this article.

Benefits of using runbooks

Runbooks make life easier for both developers and IT teams. For devs they help standardize deployment processes, clarify systems architectures and support DevOps to speed up release cycles. IT teams benefit from reduced response times for incident management, consistency on routine tasks and reduced human error through better knowledge transfer.

To unpack these further, some of the benefits include:

• Reduced errors: Runbooks reduce errors by offering clear, detailed instructions for performing tasks. By reducing the cognitive load for developers they reduce the risk of errors.
• Optimized resources: Streamlining routine operations and troubleshooting helps optimize your resources. Freeing up time spent on resolving common, repetitive issues allows developers more time to solve novel problems.
• Faster incident response: By providing predefined steps to tackle issues, runbooks reduce the time needed to address issues. Incident triage can be a time sink for engineering teams, and runbooks can provide clear steps to reducing this.
• Improved developer experience: Cognitive load is the main barrier to good DevEx, and runbooks reduce this by offering clarity on navigating systems and handling complex incidents. Cortex's Justin Reock has been fighting the good fight on developer experience, and runbooks reduce bottlenecks and friction in line with his thinking.

Best practice tips for creating an effective runbook

While everyone will agree on the benefits of runbooks, making them work in your development environment is still a challenge. Software engineers have high workloads with conflicting priorities, and it can be hard to carve out time for important, non-urgent work like creating runbooks. They often require collaboration from different stakeholders to be effective, which requires good communication and increases the risk of delays and bottlenecks. Because runbooks are living documents you need to ensure they are maintained with the latest process and technology changes too, and of course build a culture of user adoption to make sure they are fulfilling their function.

Runbooks are good because they reduce friction and cognitive load, so it stands to reason that best practice for creating runbooks is to reduce friction and cognitive load in the process. Some tips for doing this include:

• Tailor the language and level of detail to your audience: Start with your audience in mind when writing a runbook. When in doubt, always presume less knowledge and experience in the reader.
• Use clear, active voice and write procedures in a step-by-step format: Writing with clarity ensures instructions are direct and easily understood. Using a step-by-step format minimizes confusion and ensures consistent execution by the user.
• Structure your runbook logically: Organize the runbook in a logical sequence, grouping related tasks together. This helps users navigate the document quickly and efficiently to find the information they need quickly.
• Incorporate visuals: Our brains process images more quickly than text, and visuals can provide reassurance to the end user. Add screenshots, diagrams, and other visual aids to provide additional clarity for complex procedures.
• Establish a system for version control: Maintaining runbooks as living documents means having a clear system for updating and maintaining them. Provide clear instructions for maintenance, track changes and ensure that users are accessing the most current version of the runbook.
• Schedule periodic testing of your runbooks: Another way to ensure Regularly test runbooks to verify their accuracy and effectiveness. Periodic testing helps identify and address any gaps or updates needed to maintain relevancy.
• Integrate automation wherever possible: Given runbooks are designed to facilitate processes, it makes sense to build in runbook automation that can streamline repetitive tasks contained in these processes. Automation further reduces manual errors and helps with cognitive load.
• Promote a culture of runbook usage: Runbooks only work if there is a culture that values them on both the supply and the demand sides. Foster an environment where runbooks are valued by creators and users, providing training and driving awareness as much as possible.
• Use an internal developer portal: The best tool for centralizing your runbooks and accessing them alongside other technical resources is the Internal Developer Portal (IDP). These massively reduce the friction to creating, maintaining and accessing runbooks, as well as providing access to supplementary documentation.

How can Cortex help?

The Cortex IDP is trusted by world-class engineering teams to abstract away complexity in ensuring alignment to all standards of software excellence. Centralize and enforce the presence of documentation, resources, read.me's, and runbooks for fastest response when issues arise. Plus, create scorecards to continuously check, and prompt updates to runbooks when necessary.

If you're interested in learning more about this approach to software development, connect with us today.