Mattermost Playbooks: Setup Guide for Teams

Mattermost Playbooks turn your best practices into repeatable workflows that your team can execute instantly. A playbook is a collaborative runbook: a checklist-driven process that coordinates multiple people, updates channel status, and captures data for retrospectives. You create it once and run it dozens of times without rebuilding it manually each time.

What are Mattermost Playbooks?

Mattermost Playbooks are structured workflows that combine checklists, automation, and team coordination. They differ fundamentally from simple channels and messages because they enforce a sequence, assign accountability, and record outcomes.

Think of a playbook as an executable runbook. In traditional operations, a runbook is a written guide: "If the database goes down, do A, then B, then notify C." Playbooks digitize that. They create a channel, populate a checklist, assign tasks to team members, trigger integrations, and collect data about how the process went.

Every playbook starts as a template. Templates are pre-built blueprints: incident response, release management, onboarding, security reviews. When you start a playbook run, Mattermost creates a new instance of that template, generates a dedicated channel for that run, and prepares the checklist. Your team completes tasks in real time. The system logs every action with timestamps, who completed what, and notes. After the run ends, you run a retrospective: a structured review that identifies what went well and what to improve next time.

The architecture is: Template (the blueprint) -> Playbook (your configured version of the template) -> Run (a single execution of that playbook). This separation lets you maintain one playbook and execute it repeatedly without duplicating work.

When Should You Use Playbooks?

Playbooks solve the coordination problem. They are most valuable when:

Incident Response. Your production database goes down at 2 AM. An incident playbook creates a war room channel, posts a notification to all on-call staff, starts a checklist (collect logs, page the database team, notify affected customers), and records every action with timestamps. After the incident resolves, the playbook captures what happened, what took how long, and what to improve. Next incident, you run the same playbook and eliminate the "what do we do first?" confusion.

Release Management. You ship code every two weeks. A release playbook creates a release channel, stages the pre-release checklist (code freeze, run tests, update docs), automates notifications to stakeholders, and logs the release timeline. Every release follows the same steps in the same order. The retrospective shows you if releases are getting faster or slower and where the bottlenecks are.

Onboarding. New hires need to be added to systems, assigned a machine, sent to training, and assigned a buddy. An onboarding playbook creates a channel for that new person, populates tasks for HR, IT, and the hiring manager, and triggers integrations (email the training team, add them to calendars). The timeline captures how long onboarding actually takes.

Security Reviews or Audits. When you need to audit a system, a playbook ensures you follow the same steps every time, document every check, and record the date and who performed each step.

Playbooks are ineffective for one-off tasks or tasks that rarely repeat. They shine when you run the same process repeatedly and want consistency, speed, and accountability.

Free vs. Paid: What Edition Are You On?

Mattermost offers Playbooks only in Entry, Enterprise, and Enterprise Advanced editions. The Professional edition includes channel checklists only, which is a simplified task list but lacks full playbook automation and retrospectives.

Here is what each edition includes:

Professional: Channel checklists only. You can create a checklist in a channel, assign items to people, and check them off. No playbook templates, no automation, no retrospectives. Useful for simple task tracking but not for complex incident response or release management workflows.

Entry Plan and above: Full Playbooks feature. Create playbooks from templates, execute runs, assign tasks, automate actions (create channels, invite members, send webhooks), post status updates, and run retrospectives. You get the full collaborative workflow orchestration.

If you are running Mattermost Professional and need playbooks, you will need to upgrade. If your team runs incident response, release management, or complex onboarding processes, Entry or higher is the right tier.

Creating Your First Playbook: Step-by-Step

You create a playbook by either choosing a template or starting blank. Templates give you a head start; custom playbooks let you design exactly what you need.

Step 1: Navigate to Playbooks.

In your Mattermost workspace, go to the Playbooks section (usually accessible from the main menu or workspace navigation). Click "Playbooks" or "Create a New Playbook."

Step 2: Choose a Template or Start Blank.

Mattermost provides templates for common scenarios: incident response, release management, onboarding, customer support escalation. Pick the one closest to your workflow. If none fits, choose "Blank Playbook" and build from scratch.

Step 3: Name the Playbook and Write a Description.

Give your playbook a clear, searchable name: "Production Incident Response" or "Software Release Checklist." Write a one-sentence description explaining when and why people run this playbook. This helps your team find the right playbook when they need it.

Step 4: Configure the Checklist Tab.

The checklist is the core of the playbook. Add tasks in the order your team needs to complete them. For each task, include:

• Task title (clear and specific, e.g., "Collect error logs" not just "Logs")
• Task description (optional but recommended; explains what "done" looks like)
• Assignee type (choose "Assign to a specific person" or "Assign to a member of a specific team"; leave flexible so different runs can assign to different people)

Order matters. Mattermost presents tasks in sequence, so put blockers first (things that must be done before anything else) and then dependent tasks.

Step 5: Set Up Actions (Optional but Powerful).

Actions are where playbooks automate. When a run is created, you can automatically:

• Create a new channel for that run (e.g., #incident-2024-11-06-database)
• Invite specific team members to that channel
• Send a Slack or webhook notification to other systems ("Alert our monitoring tool that we have started an incident run")
• Post a message to the channel with links or formatted context

You define actions once and they trigger every time someone starts a run of this playbook. This eliminates the "Who should I notify?" and "Should we create a channel?" questions.

Step 6: Add Status Updates (Optional).

Status updates are updates posted to the playbook channel at regular intervals, prompting the team to say what is happening. For example, every 15 minutes during an incident, Mattermost can post "Incident Update: Please share status" and the team replies in thread. This keeps everyone aligned and the timeline complete.

Step 7: Configure Retrospective Settings (Optional).

If you want playbook runs to end with a structured retrospective (what went well, what to improve), configure the retrospective template here. You can choose pre-built retrospective formats (Start/Stop/Continue, Glad/Sad/Mad) or customize one. When a run ends, Mattermost prompts the team to complete the retrospective.

Step 8: Save the Playbook.

Once configured, save the playbook. It is now available in your Playbooks library. Team members can start runs of this playbook whenever the triggering event occurs (an incident, a release, a new hire, etc.).

Running a Playbook: Execution and Collaboration

Once you have created and saved a playbook, running it is straightforward.

Starting a Run.

When an event occurs that triggers a playbook (an incident detected, a release window opens, a new hire arrives), someone on the team starts a playbook run. This can be done manually via the Playbooks UI, or automatically via a slash command keyword. For example, if you configure the keyword "/incident," any team member can type that command in a channel and Mattermost creates a new incident run automatically.

When a run starts, Mattermost executes the Actions you configured: creates a channel, invites the right people, posts initial notifications, and populates the channel with the checklist.

Assigning and Completing Tasks.

The playbook displays the checklist in the channel. Each task shows an assignment (who is responsible), a description, and a checkbox. Assigned team members complete their tasks and check them off. Mattermost records who completed what and when. If a task is blocked (waiting for something else), a team member can add a comment explaining why and tag the person who can unblock it.

Multiple people can work on different tasks in parallel. The checklist is visible to the whole channel, so everyone sees progress and knows who is on what.

Posting Status Updates.

If you configured status updates, Mattermost posts prompts to the channel at your defined intervals. The team responds with what is happening now. These updates are threaded and timestamped, so after the incident you have a complete narrative of who said what when.

Using Keywords to Trigger Runs.

You can configure keywords (slash commands) to start playbook runs directly from Mattermost messages. For example:

• /incident - starts an incident response playbook run
• /release - starts a release management playbook run
• /onboard @newperson - starts an onboarding playbook run for a new team member

Keywords make playbook runs effortless. When an incident happens, the first responder does not hunt for the Playbooks UI; they type /incident and Mattermost orchestrates the rest.

Ending a Run and Retrospectives.

When the incident is resolved, the release is shipped, or onboarding is done, someone marks the playbook run as complete. Mattermost then prompts the team to run a retrospective. Retrospectives are structured reviews: the system shows the timeline of the run (what tasks happened, in what order, who did them), the team discusses what went well and what to improve, and Mattermost records the retrospective for future reference.

Retrospectives: Closing the Loop

Retrospectives turn individual runs into organizational learning. Without retrospectives, you run the same process repeatedly but never get smarter about it. Retrospectives force that reflection.

When a playbook run ends, Mattermost shows you:

• The timeline: exact timestamps of when each task started and completed
• Duration: how long the whole process took and how long each phase took
• Notes: any comments team members added during the run
• Checklist coverage: which tasks were completed and which were skipped

The team then answers retrospective questions (the template you chose during playbook setup). Examples:

• "What went well in this incident response?"
• "What should we do differently next time?"
• "What blockers did we hit?"
• "How can we get faster?"

Mattermost records the retrospective data and makes it searchable. Over time, you see patterns: "We always get stuck on step 3" or "Notify the CEO" now completes 50% faster than it did 6 months ago. These patterns guide improvements to your playbooks.

Retrospectives are the difference between running processes and improving them.

Best Practices for Playbook Success

Playbooks fail when they are too rigid or too vague. Here are practices that work:

Assign Every Task to a Specific Person or Team.

If a task says "Assign to: Anyone on the team," it gets assigned to no one. When you create a playbook run, assign each task to the specific person or team who owns it. This is how you get accountability. "Collect logs" assigned to "@ops-team" means the ops team knows it is their job.

Start with Your Worst Process.

Do not start by playbook-ifying your most straightforward process. Identify your most painful, most-repeated, most-failure-prone process. That is your first playbook. If release management is chaotic, that is your first playbook. If incident response is ad-hoc, that is first. Playbooks have the highest value where processes are most broken.

Integrate with Tools Your Team Already Uses.

Mattermost Playbooks integrate with Slack commands, webhooks, and Jira. If you use Jira for issue tracking, create an action that automatically creates a Jira ticket when a playbook run starts. If you use Slack, set up slash commands to start playbook runs from Slack. If you have custom tools, use webhooks to notify them. The more you automate, the less manual work your team does.

Update Playbooks After Every Retrospective.

After each retrospective, ask: "What should change in the playbook?" Did a task take too long? Move it earlier or split it into smaller subtasks. Did a task get skipped? Remove it or clarify why it is necessary. Did we discover a new step? Add it. Playbooks are living documents. They should improve after every run.

Use Templates as Starting Points, Not Final Products.

Mattermost provides templates for incident response, release management, and onboarding. These templates are good starting points but they are generic. Customize them to your team, your systems, and your culture. If your incident response does not require a CEO notification, remove that task. If it always includes a post-mortem in Google Docs, add that action.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Mattermost playbook templates?

Templates are pre-built playbook blueprints provided by Mattermost or created by you for reuse. Mattermost ships templates for incident response, release management, customer onboarding, and security reviews. When you create a playbook from a template, you start with a pre-populated checklist and set of actions, then customize it. Templates accelerate playbook creation and ensure consistency across your organization.

How do playbooks differ from plugins?

Plugins extend Mattermost's core functionality with new features (e.g., a whiteboard plugin, a polling plugin). Playbooks are a built-in feature for workflow orchestration. Playbooks can integrate with plugins and other tools via webhooks and slash commands, but they are not plugins themselves. Playbooks are part of Mattermost's core product.

Can playbooks automate workflows entirely, or do they require manual steps?

Playbooks combine automation and manual steps. You automate what you can (create channels, send notifications, trigger webhooks) and include manual tasks for judgment calls and complex work. For example, an incident response playbook automates notifying the team and creating a war room channel, but the on-call engineer manually diagnoses the issue. This hybrid approach is what makes playbooks flexible and practical.

What is in the Mattermost Marketplace?

The Mattermost Marketplace is a library of community-contributed and official playbooks, plugins, and integrations. You can browse playbooks shared by other Mattermost users (incident response, release management, sales onboarding, etc.), try them, and customize them for your team. The Marketplace is free to browse and download from.

Are playbooks available on mobile?

Mattermost added Mobile Playbooks in recent versions. Team members can view and complete playbook tasks on their phone, though the full playbook creation and configuration interface is desktop-only. Mobile support means your team can complete tasks and update status from anywhere, not just from a desk.

Do playbooks work with Slack?

Mattermost Playbooks do not integrate with Slack channels directly because Playbooks are a Mattermost-native feature. However, you can set up webhooks and slash commands in both Mattermost and Slack to pass information between the two systems. For example, a Mattermost playbook can send a webhook notification to Slack when a run starts.

How much does it cost to use Playbooks?

Playbooks are included in Mattermost Entry, Enterprise, and Enterprise Advanced plans. They are not available in the Professional edition, which includes only channel checklists. Pricing depends on your Mattermost plan and deployment model (cloud-hosted or self-hosted). For Mattermost Cloud pricing and Mattermost self-hosted pricing information, check the official pricing pages.

The Bottom Line

Mattermost Playbooks turn your best practices into executable, repeatable workflows. They reduce incident response time, standardize release processes, and accelerate onboarding by eliminating the "what is the next step?" question. Playbooks require at least the Entry edition, so if you are running Professional, you will need to upgrade. Start with your most painful process, build a playbook for it, run it a few times, and improve it based on retrospectives. Over time, playbooks become your organization's operating manual. Ready to set up playbooks for your team? Explore managed Mattermost hosting to get started without managing infrastructure yourself.