What is runbook ?

•  A runbook is a detailed “how-to” guide for completing a commonly repeated task or procedure within a company’s IT operations process (e.g. provisioning, software updates / deployment, change configs, and opening ports). Runbooks are created to provide everyone on the team—new or experienced—the knowledge and steps to quickly and accurately resolve a given issue. For example, a runbook may outline routine operations tasks such as patching a server or renewing a website’s SSL certificate.
• Think of a runbook as a recipe. It provides detailed instructions for completing a specific task in a quick and efficient manner based on previous experiences with resolving the issue. Runbooks allow more experienced members on the team to share their knowledge so newer or more junior members can more easily resolve commonly faced issues themselves. It also means all team members can quickly refresh their memory and follow detailed steps without having to memorize countless individual procedures.

When Should Runbooks be Used?

• Runbooks are extremely helpful for incident response operations. By creating runbooks for specific incidents, there becomes a shared wealth of knowledge and expertise that would otherwise be kept solely in the heads of experts. With detailed, updated runbooks, there is less need for escalation and companies can often function with smaller on-call IT teams.
• Runbooks can also be used for day-to-day IT operations activities like regular maintenance of IT systems and applications. For example, a runbook can outline common tasks such as creating database backups or updating access permissions.
• A runbook can also be:
• Manual: Step-by-step instructions followed by the operator
• Semi-Automated: A combination of operator-followed steps with automated steps
• Fully-Automated: All steps are automated and require no operator
• Once a runbook is created, it should also be constantly updated to ensure it is the most effective solution. Runbooks should always contain the most up-to-date information and account for any new methodologies within a company’s operations.

Basic Runbook idea for Mule  or Any API :

• Incident time and date.
• Email notifications occurred or not.
• What are the impacts because of the incident.
• Level of that incident.
• What actions taken.
• Who is responsible to fix that incident.
• How its was fixed and time taken to fix it.