Build and Execute Playbooks for Incident Response

Playbooks in Scrubbe are structured runbooks that your team can execute step-by-step during an incident. Instead of relying on tribal knowledge or scattered wikis, a playbook encodes exactly what to do, in what order, and lets you track progress against each step. Once published, playbooks can be matched automatically to incoming incidents or executed on demand. This guide covers creating a playbook, publishing it, running it against an incident, and tracking execution progress.

Prerequisites

A valid API key with playbook read/write permissions
At least one incident ticket to test against (see Manage Incidents)

Create a playbook

Build a playbook by posting its steps and metadata. Steps can include instructions, commands, verification checks, or escalation actions.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Redis Connection Pool Exhaustion",
    "description": "Steps to diagnose and recover from a Redis connection pool exhaustion event.",
    "serviceArea": "payments",
    "steps": [
      {
        "title": "Confirm the alert",
        "description": "Verify Redis connection metrics in Datadog. Confirm pool utilisation is above 95%."
      },
      {
        "title": "Increase pool size",
        "description": "Update REDIS_MAX_CONNECTIONS in the environment config and restart the payments service."
      },
      {
        "title": "Verify recovery",
        "description": "Confirm checkout success rate returns to baseline in the payments dashboard."
      },
      {
        "title": "Post a status update",
        "description": "Update the incident ticket status to MITIGATED and add a comment with findings."
      }
    ]
  }'

The response includes the playbook id you will use in subsequent calls.

List and retrieve playbooks

curl https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

curl https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/<id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

Update a playbook

Iterate on a playbook’s steps or metadata before publishing. Updates to a draft do not affect in-progress executions.

curl -X PUT https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/<id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "steps": [
      {
        "title": "Confirm the alert",
        "description": "Check Redis connection metrics in Datadog and PagerDuty alert context."
      }
    ]
  }'

Publish a playbook

A playbook must be published before it can be matched to incidents or executed. Publishing freezes the current version.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/<id>/publish \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

To revise a published playbook, update it (which creates a new draft) and publish again. Existing executions continue against the version they were started on.

Match a playbook to an incident

Scrubbe can suggest which published playbooks are most relevant for a given incident. Use this when you are unsure which runbook to follow.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/match \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "incidentId": "<incidentId>"
  }'

The response returns a ranked list of matching playbooks with relevance scores.

Execute a playbook

Start an execution of a published playbook against a specific incident. An execution tracks which steps have been completed, skipped, or are pending.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/<id>/execute \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "incidentId": "<incidentId>"
  }'

The response includes an executionId you will use to manage step progress.

Manage execution steps

Work through the playbook step by step. Step indexes are zero-based.

Complete a step

Mark a step done once the action is taken and verified.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/executions/<executionId>/steps/0/complete \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "note": "Pool utilisation confirmed at 98% — proceeding with config change." }'

Skip a step

Skip a step when it is not applicable to this specific incident.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/executions/<executionId>/steps/1/skip \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "reason": "Config change already applied by automation." }'

Complete the execution

Once all steps are done, close the execution.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/executions/<executionId>/complete \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

Cancel an execution

If an execution is no longer relevant — for example, the incident was escalated to a different team — cancel it.

Cancelling an execution cannot be undone. The execution record is retained for audit purposes but cannot be resumed.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/executions/<executionId>/cancel \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

List executions

Review all playbook executions across your workspace, or inspect a specific one.

curl https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/executions/list \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

curl https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/executions/<executionId> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

AI-powered playbook suggestions and patterns

Use the suggest endpoint to get AI-generated playbook recommendations based on an incident’s symptoms, or the patterns endpoint to see which types of incidents most commonly trigger each playbook.

curl -X POST https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/suggest \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "incidentId": "<incidentId>" }'

curl https://api.scrubbe.io/api/v1/playbooks/patterns \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

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Build and Execute Playbooks for Incident Response

Prerequisites

Create a playbook

List and retrieve playbooks

Update a playbook

Publish a playbook

Match a playbook to an incident

Execute a playbook

Manage execution steps

Cancel an execution

List executions

AI-powered playbook suggestions and patterns

​Prerequisites

​Create a playbook

​List and retrieve playbooks

​Update a playbook

​Publish a playbook

​Match a playbook to an incident

​Execute a playbook

​Manage execution steps

​Cancel an execution

​List executions

​AI-powered playbook suggestions and patterns

Prerequisites

Create a playbook

List and retrieve playbooks

Update a playbook

Publish a playbook

Match a playbook to an incident

Execute a playbook

Manage execution steps

Cancel an execution

List executions

AI-powered playbook suggestions and patterns