---
name: playbooks
description: Trigger-action automation rules for handling incoming messages
compatibility: "Designed for Vellum personal assistants"
metadata:
emoji: "📖"
vellum:
display-name: "Playbooks"
---
Playbooks are trigger-action automation rules that tell the assistant how to handle incoming messages matching a pattern.
## Structure
Each playbook has:
- **Trigger**: Pattern or description that activates the rule (e.g. "meeting request", "from:ceo@*")
- **Action**: What to do when triggered (natural language description)
- **Channel**: Which channel the rule applies to ("*" = all channels, or specific like "email", "slack")
- **Category**: Free-form grouping label (e.g. "scheduling", "triage")
- **Autonomy level**: How much autonomy the assistant has
- `auto` -- execute immediately without asking
- `draft` -- prepare a response for user review (default)
- `notify` -- alert the user only
- **Priority**: Numeric priority for overlapping rules (higher = takes precedence)
## Lifecycle
1. Create a playbook with `playbook_create` specifying trigger and action.
2. List existing playbooks with `playbook_list`, optionally filtering by channel or category.
3. Update rules with `playbook_update` or remove them with `playbook_delete`.
## Storage
Playbooks are stored as memory items with semantic retrieval, enabling fuzzy matching of incoming messages against trigger patterns.