# Playbooks

> Step-by-step guides your agent follows in a situation you describe, using your own data where a step needs it.

Source: https://www.hey.support/docs/behavior/playbooks

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A playbook tells your agent what to do, in order, when a particular kind of conversation comes up. Write it the way you would brief a new teammate.

Open **Playbooks** in the Build menu, after Behavior, and choose **New playbook**.

## What a playbook has

* **Name** — for you, such as "Delivery check".
* **When to use it** — the situation, in a sentence: "A visitor asks whether we deliver to their area."
* **Steps** — up to 15, followed in order. A step is a plain instruction ("Ask for their postcode."). **Add if / otherwise** adds a step with two outcomes: *If* we deliver there, *then* tell them the next delivery date, *otherwise* suggest picking up in store.

Your agent takes one step per reply where it needs something from the visitor, skips a step that is already done, and still answers what the visitor asks along the way. A playbook never makes the agent invent an answer: if a step needs something it does not know, it says so.

## Using your own data in a step

If your agent has endpoints in [Your API](/docs/capabilities/your-api), each step has a menu to pick one: "Check whether we deliver there", using your delivery endpoint. Your agent calls that endpoint at that step.

If [Order help](/docs/capabilities/order-help) is on, the same menu offers **look up an order** and, where address changes are allowed, **change a shipping address**.

A playbook that uses an endpoint which is switched off or deleted, or Order help while it is off, is skipped, and the page says why. You cannot switch such a playbook on until you pick another endpoint or switch the endpoint back on. Deleting an endpoint tells you which playbooks use it.

## Limits

Up to 10 playbooks per agent, 15 steps each, and 5 if / otherwise steps per playbook. Your [custom instructions](/docs/behavior/instructions-and-rules) still take priority over a playbook.

Playbooks guide what your agent says. Which card a visitor sees (a booking calendar, the contact card, a ticket) is still decided the same way as before, so write those as plain steps: "Offer to book a call."