OpenPlaybook, the open playbook spec
A playbook is data, not code: a declarative definition of triggers, steps, tools, guardrails, and approval policy that any conforming runtime can interpret. OpenPlaybook is that format, published open.
The canonical wire format is JSON. A conforming runtime reads a .playbook.json document and acts on it; the PorchOps runtime is the reference implementation, one reader among many. The spec is published under Apache 2.0 in the public porchops/openplaybook repository: the normative spec text, the Zod definitions, the generated JSON Schema artifacts, and a conformance corpus any implementation can run.
The current wire-format version is 1.11. New here? Read the format reference for the document shape, then walk your first playbook end to end.
Format referenceThe document shape: envelope, manifest, triggers, the seven step kinds, and guardrails.
→Your first playbookWalk a complete, runnable document: an agent step, an approval gate, and a terminator.
→Tools & capabilitiesHow a step's allowedTools list resolves, and how a document declares its connections.
→PublishingShipping to the marketplace: arriving with the Q3 2026 opening.
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