Creating playbooks

This page covers how to create a playbook in Batida, including content structure, team assignment, and step tracking.

Creating a new playbook

1. Navigate to Playbooks in the sidebar.
2. Click Create Playbook.
3. Fill in the basic information:
   • Title -- the playbook name (e.g., "Database Outage Response").
   • Description -- a brief summary of what the playbook covers.
   • Incident types -- which incident types this playbook applies to.
   • Assigned team -- the team responsible for executing the playbook.
4. Write the playbook content using the rich text editor.
5. Click Publish.

Content structure

A well-structured playbook includes the following sections:

Overview

A brief description of the scenario the playbook addresses. Answer: "When should this playbook be used?"

Pre-requisites

Tools, access, or information that responders need before starting. For example, database admin credentials, monitoring dashboard URLs, or escalation contacts.

Step-by-step procedure

The core of the playbook. Each step should be:

• Specific -- describe exactly what to do.
• Ordered -- steps should follow a logical sequence.
• Assigned -- each step can have a responsible role or person.
• Verifiable -- include a way to confirm the step was completed.

Recovery steps

What to do after the incident is resolved: monitoring, verification, and communication.

Step tracking

Playbooks in Batida support interactive step tracking. When a Commander assigns a playbook to an incident:

1. Each step appears as a checklist item in the incident page.
2. Responders click to mark steps as complete.
3. Progress is visible to the entire team.
4. The Commander can see which steps are still pending.

Formatting tips

• Use bold text for critical actions that must not be skipped.
• Use code blocks for commands that need to be run.
• Include links to external documentation or runbooks.
• Use decision tree blocks for conditional steps. See Decision trees.

Versioning

Every time you edit and publish a playbook, a new version is created. Previous versions are saved and can be restored if needed. The version history shows who made changes and when.

TIP

Review playbooks quarterly to keep them up to date with changes in your infrastructure and processes.