Rulebooks, Playbooks, Cookbooks and Runbooks

The book family. Four kinds of structured document, distinguished by what they do to the reader — enforce, direct, show, or execute. Naming them separately matters because organisations collapse them into one undifferentiated "documentation", and then wonder why none of it gets used. | Book | Answers | Binding? | Reader | |---|---|---|---| | Rulebook | What must always be true | Enforced automatically | The platform (and the auditor) | | Playbook | How we handle this situation | Procedural, judgment allowed | A person deciding | | Cookbook | How this is built, in practice | Pattern, freely adapted | A builder, mid-task | | Runbook | What to do, step by step, now | Deterministic, no judgment | Whoever is on duty — or an agent | The distinction is not formality but what happens when you deviate. Break a rulebook and the pipeline fails. Deviate from a playbook and you explain yourself. Ignore a cookbook and you have written something bespoke. Skip a runbook step and the thing does not work.