Runbooks best practices

Matthew Casperson's article discusses optimizing operations workflows through automation, particularly by using runbooks in Octopus to streamline tasks traditionally handled by CI servers. The text outlines best practices for creating automated runbooks, emphasizing the importance of discoverability, inspection, data collection, confirmation, rectification, verification, notification, and testing. Casperson provides a detailed example of a runbook designed to restart an Azure web application, highlighting the steps involved in identifying system issues, collecting diagnostic data, and ensuring the system's return to a desired state. The article underscores the significance of testing runbooks in non-production environments to validate their effectiveness and suggests that automating these processes enhances both speed and quality in operations, aligning with the broader goals of DevOps methodologies.