Runbooks

A Runbook gives reusable ordered or branching operating instructions for completing a Task. Procedure, branching, retry and Tool order belong here, not in Task hierarchy.

Field (under obsidience)	Meaning
task	The exact Task this procedure completes.
for_agent	The Agent the procedure applies to.
skills	The exact Skills the procedure may load. A Runbook loads only its declared Skills.
subrunbooks	Decomposition into child Runbooks (acyclic).
owner_maintained	Marks a procedure the owner maintains.

Rules that keep Runbooks safe for small models:

• Bindings only narrow. Runbook operation Tools and runtime instruction sections may narrow a Task's authority, never widen it.
• Missing links fail closed. A missing or malformed Skill link stops activation; the model never invents a replacement.
• Reference-only procedures (Runbooks/Operations) declare their Agent and required Skills without a Task. They are read when needed and add no Task, standing packet or grant.
• An Agent's standing instructions belong in its identity Article, not in a Runbook. The Executive has no standing Runbook.
• Generated Runbooks. When an assigned Task lacks an applicable Runbook, task.assigned activates Darwin's Generate → Runbook, which proposes one with an explicit minimal Skill subset; the Task waits for Review. Existing Runbook improvement belongs to Heimdall's Audit.

Starter Vault Runbooks

24 Runbooks Articles, generated at build time from obsidience/defaults/vault.

Runbook	Article	Task	Agent	Skills
Runbook: Query (Alexandria)	Runbooks/Generated/curator/query	Query	Alexandria	observations.retain, source.read, task.complete, vault.list, vault.read, vault.search, observations.recall
Query Runbook	Runbooks/Generated/guardian/query	Query	Heimdall	observations.retain, source.read, task.complete, vault.list, vault.read, vault.search, observations.recall, harness.status
Runbook: Query (Darwin)	Runbooks/Generated/researcher/query	Query	Darwin	observations.retain, source.ingest, source.read, task.complete, vault.search, web.fetch, web.search, observations.recall
Operations	Runbooks/Operations/Operations	reference only	Computer	—
Application launch and window management	Runbooks/Operations/application-launch-and-window-management	reference only	Computer	application.launch, computer.observe, window.activate, window.place, computer.act
Media library and playback	Runbooks/Operations/media-library-and-playback	reference only	Computer	media.library, media.acquire, tv.control
Answer procedure	Runbooks/answer-the-user	Query	Computer	vault.search, vault.read, source.read, harness.status, task.create, task.complete, observations.retain, observations.recall
Archive procedure	Runbooks/archive	Archive	Alexandria	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, source.read, vault.propose, observations.retain, observations.recall
Audit procedure	Runbooks/audit	Audit	Heimdall	harness.optimize
Generate runbook procedure	Runbooks/create-a-runbook	reference only	—	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, vault.propose, observations.retain, observations.recall
Generate skill procedure	Runbooks/create-a-skill	reference only	—	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, vault.propose, vault.validate, observations.retain, observations.recall
Generate task procedure	Runbooks/create-a-task	reference only	—	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, vault.propose, observations.retain, observations.recall
Generate tool procedure	Runbooks/create-a-tool	reference only	—	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, vault.propose, vault.validate, observations.retain, observations.recall
Curate procedure	Runbooks/curate	Curate	Alexandria	vault.maintenance, task.create, observations.retain, observations.recall, source.read, vault.search, vault.read, vault.propose, vault.validate, task.complete
Generate procedure	Runbooks/generate	@library/Tasks/generate (missing)	Darwin	—
Improve procedure	Runbooks/improve	Improve	Alexandria	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, source.read, vault.propose, observations.retain, observations.recall
Ingest procedure	Runbooks/ingest-sources	Ingest	Alexandria	source.read, vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, vault.propose, vault.validate, observations.retain, observations.recall
Link procedure	Runbooks/link	Link	Alexandria	source.read, vault.search, vault.read, vault.validate, vault.propose, observations.retain, observations.recall
Merge procedure	Runbooks/merge	Merge	Alexandria	vault.search, vault.read, vault.validate, vault.propose, observations.retain, observations.recall
Harness repair procedure	Runbooks/repair	Repair	Heimdall	harness.status, harness.repair, observations.retain, observations.recall
Learn procedure	Runbooks/research/learn	Research / Learn	Darwin	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, web.search, web.fetch, source.read, source.handoff, observations.retain, observations.recall
Model research procedure	Runbooks/research/model	Research / Model	Heimdall	model.inspect, model.source, model.benchmark, model.configure, observations.retain, observations.recall
Research question procedure	Runbooks/research/question	Research / Question	Darwin	vault.list, vault.search, vault.read, web.search, web.fetch, source.read, source.handoff, observations.retain, observations.recall
Research procedure	Runbooks/research	reference only	Darwin	web.search, web.fetch, source.ingest, source.read, source.handoff, observations.retain, observations.recall