SOAR Playbook Design

Effective SOAR playbooks automate repetitive tasks while maintaining appropriate human oversight. Good playbook design accelerates response without creating new risks.

Playbook Design Principles

Start simple. Begin with straightforward automations—enrichment, notification, ticket creation. Add complexity as you build confidence.

High-confidence first. Automate actions where false positives have minimal impact. IOC enrichment cannot cause harm; automatic isolation might.

Human gates. Include approval steps before irreversible actions. Analysts confirm before the playbook isolates systems or disables accounts.

Idempotency. Playbooks should be safe to run multiple times. If the playbook runs twice on the same alert, it should not cause problems.

Error handling. Account for failures. What happens if enrichment APIs are unavailable? What if isolation fails? Build in error handling and notification.

Common Automation Patterns

Enrichment playbooks automatically gather context when alerts fire:

• Look up IP reputation in threat intelligence


• Query asset database for system information


• Check user context in identity systems


• Retrieve related alerts from the past 24 hours

Notification playbooks alert appropriate personnel:

• Page on-call analysts for critical alerts


• Send Slack/Teams messages to channels


• Create tickets in incident management systems


• Email summaries to stakeholders

Containment playbooks (with approval) take action:

• Isolate endpoints via EDR integration


• Block IPs at firewall


• Disable compromised accounts


• Quarantine emails matching indicators

Integration Architecture

SOAR platforms connect to tools via:

APIs - Direct integration with tool APIs. Most flexible but requires development.

Connectors - Pre-built integrations provided by the SOAR vendor. Easy to configure but may not cover all functionality.

Webhooks - Other tools push data to SOAR. Useful for event-driven triggers.

Custom scripts - Python or PowerShell for unique requirements.

Testing and Maintenance

Test thoroughly before production. Use test alerts and sandbox environments.

Version control playbooks like code. Track changes and enable rollback.

Monitor performance. Are playbooks completing? How long do they take? What errors occur?

Review regularly. As tools and processes evolve, playbooks need updates.