A runbook is read under the worst possible conditions, so it's designed for a stressed operator at 3am: calm teal accents, monospace step headings that anchor the eye, boxed command blocks you can copy without thinking, and numbered procedures that survive being followed half-awake.
Keep runbooks in the repo where they belong — Markdown, reviewed like code. Numbered steps, fenced commands, a decision table for the judgment calls. Render on merge and pin the PDF in your incident channel; when the wiki is part of the outage, the runbook isn't.
# Runbook — Primary Database Failover **Service** core-db · **Severity when used** SEV-1 · **Owner** Platform ## When to use this Primary is unreachable for >2 minutes AND automated failover has not fired. If automation is mid-failover, **wait** — see step 0. ## Procedure 0. Check automation state first: ```bash nwctl failover status core-db ``` 1. Confirm the primary is actually down (not a monitor flap): ```bash nwctl db ping core-db --from eu-1,us-1 ``` 2. Promote the replica: ```bash nwctl db promote core-db-replica-2 --confirm ``` 3. Verify writes on the new primary before announcing: ```bash nwctl db verify core-db --writes ``` ## Decision points | Situation | Action | | ----------------------------- | -------------------------- | | Replica lag > 30s at promote | Page DBA on-call, hold | | Both replicas unhealthy | Invoke DR plan, do NOT promote | | Promote fails twice | Escalate to vendor support | ## Aftercare - Announce in #incidents with new primary id - File the timeline within 24h — template in the postmortem repo
curl https://inkrun.dev/api/v1/render \
-H "Authorization: Bearer sk_..." \
-H "Accept: application/pdf" \
-d '{"template": "runbook", "markdown": "# ..."}' \
--output runbook.pdfAdd the Inkrun MCP connector once, then ask your agent:
“Convert this incident procedure into a runbook PDF with the runbook template.”
Yes — code blocks render as selectable monospace text, not images, so commands copy cleanly out of the PDF.
Render in CI whenever the Markdown changes — the PDF pinned in your incident channel then always matches the reviewed source.
Yes — margins and contrast are print-safe, and deterministic rendering means the binder copy matches the digital one.
Monospace headings for API references and developer docs.
Roboto Mono headings and grid tables for endpoint docs.
Neutral slate for crisp, skimmable notes.