What is a playbook? - Wayak

A playbook is an automation in Wayak. It defines a sequence of steps that run automatically — triggered by a schedule, an event, or a user request. Playbooks chain together data queries, logic, agent skills, and actions into end-to-end workflows.

Wayak playbook studio — The Playbook Studio — build, run, and monitor automated workflows

Playbooks vs. skills

A skill is a single capability — one action the agent can do. A playbook is a full workflow that can use multiple skills, branch on conditions, loop over data, and orchestrate complex processes.

	Skill	Playbook
Scope	Single action	Multi-step workflow
Complexity	Simple	Can include branching, loops, conditions
Trigger	Usually user request	Schedule, event, or user request
Example	”Look up a customer"	"Every Monday, check all overdue invoices, email each customer, and post a summary to Slack”

What playbooks can do

Query data from any connected data source
Read documents from knowledge bases
Apply logic — conditions, filters, loops, branching
Call skills — trigger agent capabilities as steps
Deliver results — send emails, post to Slack, update records, call webhooks

When to use playbooks

Use a playbook when you want something to happen automatically and reliably, without someone having to ask the agent every time. Common examples:

Weekly reports generated and delivered on Monday morning
Alerts when a metric crosses a threshold
Data quality checks that run after every sync
Onboarding sequences triggered when a new customer is created