Runbook Generator

Analyze a codebase and generate production-grade operational runbooks with copy-paste commands, verification checks after every step, rollback procedures for every destructive action, escalation paths with contact information, and time estimates for capacity planning. Detects the stack (CI/CD, database, hosting, containers) and produces runbooks tailored to the actual infrastructure. Includes staleness detection to flag runbooks when referenced config files change.

Keywords: runbook, operational procedures, incident response, deployment, rollback, database maintenance, scaling, monitoring, on-call, SRE, postmortem

Core Capabilities

• Stack detection — identify CI/CD platform, database, hosting, and orchestration from repo files; map to runbook templates; extract connection strings, deploy commands, and infra details.
• Runbook types — deployment (pre-checks, deploy, smoke tests, rollback), incident response (triage→diagnose→mitigate→resolve→postmortem), database maintenance (backup, migration, vacuum, reindex), scaling (horizontal/vertical), and monitoring (alerts, dashboards, on-call rotation).
• Format discipline — numbered steps with copy-paste commands, a VERIFY check after EVERY step, time estimates, a rollback procedure for every destructive action, and escalation paths with decision criteria.
• Maintenance — staleness detection linked to config file modification dates, quarterly review cadence, and a staging dry-run validation framework.

When to Use

• Codebase has no runbooks and you need to bootstrap them.
• Existing runbooks are outdated or incomplete.
• Onboarding a new engineer for on-call rotation.
• Preparing for an incident response drill.
• Post-incident improvement: updating runbooks with lessons learned.

Clarify First

Before generating the runbook, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• Runbook type — deployment / incident response / database maintenance / scaling / monitoring (selects the template and step structure)
• Actual stack — CI/CD platform, database, hosting, and orchestration (every copy-paste command and rollback step is stack-specific)
• Escalation contacts & severity routing — who is paged at each level (fills the escalation table; a runbook without it is unusable on-call)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Command
runbook_scaffolder.py	Generate runbook markdown templates from a JSON service definition	python scripts/runbook_scaffolder.py -i service.json --type deployment -o runbook.md
runbook_validator.py	Validate runbook markdown for completeness and quality (required sections, VERIFY blocks, hardcoded creds, escalation table)	python scripts/runbook_validator.py --dir docs/runbooks --strict
staleness_checker.py	Check runbook freshness against configurable staleness thresholds	python scripts/staleness_checker.py docs/runbooks --threshold 90 --json

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/runbook-templates.md — the stack-detection shell commands plus full deployment, incident response, and database maintenance runbook templates with copy-paste commands, VERIFY blocks, rollback, and escalation tables. Read when scanning a repo or writing a runbook.
• references/staleness-and-maintenance.md — the staleness-detection CI script and the 7-step quarterly review process. Read when automating freshness checks or running a quarterly review.
• references/quality-and-troubleshooting.md — common pitfalls, the best-practice checklist, the troubleshooting table, and the success-criteria bar. Read before shipping a runbook.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

• Generating deployment, incident response, database maintenance, scaling, and monitoring runbooks from codebase analysis
• Stack detection for common CI/CD platforms (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins), databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB), and hosting providers (Vercel, Fly.io, Kubernetes, AWS)
• Staleness detection automation and quarterly review processes
• Escalation path templates with severity-based routing

This skill does NOT cover:

• Automated execution of runbook steps — it generates documentation, not orchestration (see ci-cd-pipeline-builder for automated pipelines)
• Infrastructure provisioning or Terraform/Pulumi code generation (see migration-architect for schema migration tooling)
• Observability stack setup such as Prometheus rules, Grafana dashboards, or alert definitions (see observability-designer for monitoring infrastructure)
• Security incident response or vulnerability remediation playbooks (see skill-security-auditor for security-focused analysis)

Integration Points

Skill	Integration	Data Flow
ci-cd-pipeline-builder	Runbook deployment steps align with pipeline stages	Pipeline config feeds into deployment runbook generation; runbook rollback steps reference pipeline rollback triggers
observability-designer	Monitoring runbook references alert rules and dashboards	Observability outputs (alert names, dashboard URLs) are embedded in runbook VERIFY and Monitor steps
migration-architect	Database maintenance runbook uses migration tooling conventions	Migration file paths and commands flow into the database runbook template; rollback steps mirror migration rollback commands
release-manager	Release process triggers runbook execution checkpoints	Release tags and changelogs feed into runbook staleness checks; release gates reference runbook pre-deployment checklists
env-secrets-manager	Runbook commands reference env vars managed by secrets tooling	Secret names and vault paths flow into runbook env var references; rotation schedules inform runbook update cadence
changelog-generator	Post-deployment runbook steps cross-reference changelog entries	Changelog diffs help identify which runbook steps need re-verification after a release