Buddy Runbook generation

A Runbook is a doc_type: "runbook" document that captures the steps to investigate or resolve a recurring class of incidents. Buddy can draft a new Runbook from scratch, update an existing one based on a recent incident, or patch a single section without rewriting the whole page.

Runbooks are versioned documents. See Document management for how versions, rollback, and comments work across all document types.

When to use Buddy for Runbooks

After resolving an incident, ask Buddy to draft a Runbook from the incident room conversation.
When responding to a new kind of alert, ask Buddy to draft a Runbook from a template.
When a small step is wrong, ask Buddy to patch only that block instead of regenerating the whole page.

How it works

Buddy uses three write tools for Runbooks. All three are guarded by the approval flow described in Buddy AI chat. You see the exact document, content, and parameters before anything is saved.

Tool	What it does	When Buddy uses it
`create_document`	Creates a new document with `doc_type = "runbook"`.	"Draft a Runbook for X."
`update_document_content`	Replaces the whole `content` of an existing Runbook with a new version.	"Rewrite the Runbook to include the new escalation step."
`patch_document_content`	Edits one block of the Runbook in place.	"Fix step 3 of this Runbook."

update_document_content always creates a new version of the document. patch_document_content also creates a new version but only changes the targeted block, so reviewers can diff a small change cleanly.

Buddy never silently overwrites a Runbook. Every write goes through the approval card.

Templates

A Runbook can be drafted from a Document Template (template_type = "runbook"). Templates live per Organization, and a Team can pin its own Org-scoped or Team-scoped template. Buddy reads available templates and picks one when you ask it to "use the SRE Runbook template".

Each template stores:

name and description — how Buddy picks the right one.
content — the Markdown skeleton.
is_default — at most one default per template type.
Optional team_id — null means Org-wide; otherwise the template only appears for that Team.
Optional path — controls where the template shows up in the Explorer tree (default /Templates/).

If no template is selected, Buddy uses the Organization's built-in default Runbook skeleton.

Status and publication

A Runbook follows the same status model as all other documents — see Document management → Status lifecycle for the canonical reference (published / unpublished / archived and how the next-version "draft" workflow relates to it).

Buddy normally creates documents in published status. To work on a next version without affecting the live one, use Create draft version in the document UI; Buddy can also write the draft via update_document_content once the draft slot is opened.

Language

Generated Runbook content follows the Organization's default_locale (en or ja). This is intentional: Runbooks are read by every responder on the Team, so they use the Org-wide language, not the requester's personal language.

Examples

Draft a new Runbook from an incident room:

In the incident room, ask Buddy: "Create a Runbook for this kind of alert."
Buddy reads the conversation, the alert, and any linked Runbooks.
Buddy proposes a draft. The approval card shows the title, doc_type = "runbook", the target Team, and the full Markdown.
Approve to save. The Runbook is created as version 1 in published status.

Patch a single step:

Open an existing Runbook and ask Buddy: "Change step 3 to mention the new dashboard URL."
Buddy calls patch_document_content and shows only the changed block in the approval card.
Approve to save. A new version is recorded that other reviewers can diff against the previous one.

Buddy AI chat — how the chat session, tools, and approval flow work.
Buddy Knowledge Base — how published Runbooks are searched during investigation.
Document management — versions, drafts, rollback, and comments for all doc_types.
Organization settings — runbook_gen toggle and default_locale.