Ops Runbooks

Admin runbooks are structured, step-by-step guides that describe how to perform operational tasks, troubleshoot issues, and recover systems. They turn implicit knowledge into explicit procedures, reducing reliance on individual expertise and enabling any trained team member to resolve incidents.

Runbooks improve operational reliability by ensuring that tasks are repeatable, standardized, and accessible. They help prevent knowledge silos and reduce the risk of "hero" patterns within sysadmin, SRE or DevOps teams.

• Purpose – A clear description of what the runbook is for.
• Prerequisites – Required permissions, tools, or contextual knowledge.
• Step-by-Step Procedure – Exact commands, navigation paths, or operational tasks.
• Validation Steps – How to confirm success after execution.
• Rollback Instructions – Actions to undo changes safely.
• Escalation Contacts – Who to notify when steps fail or incidents escalate.
• Last Updated Date – Ensures the runbook remains relevant and maintained.

• Incident Response – Handling outages, alerts, or degraded services.
• Maintenance Tasks – Patching, rotating keys, updating certificates.
• Deployment Procedures – Rolling out software or infrastructure changes.
• Recovery Guides – Restoring from backups, rebooting clusters, or rebuilding nodes.

• Keep runbooks short, actionable, and free of ambiguity.
• Store them in version control.
• Validate and rehearse runbooks during non-critical periods.
• Update them after any incident or major infrastructure change.
• Ensure at least three people on the team can follow every runbook without prior knowledge.

• Infrastructure as Code
• Hero Developer
• Hero Sysadmin
• Admin Logs – if you don't have time for writing runbooks