# Runbook
Status: Seedling
A runbook is a practical operational guide for handling a known production situation.
## Mental Model
A good runbook should help an engineer act under pressure without needing to rediscover context.
It should answer:
- What is happening?
- How do I confirm it?
- What commands or dashboards should I use?
- What actions are safe?
- When should I escalate?
## Why It Matters
Runbooks reduce incident response time and help transfer operational knowledge across the team.
## Related
- [[Field Notes/Incident Review]]
- [[Topics/Production Engineering]]
- [[Projects/SRE Terminal Debugger]]