Playbooks and goals
If you remember one thing from this handbook, remember this one:
Playbooks are recipes. Goals are patrols.
Everything automated in your Jootle instance falls into one of those two categories, and knowing which is which changes how you ask for things.
What each one is
Section titled “What each one is”A playbook is a recipe
Section titled “A playbook is a recipe”A playbook is a specific sequence of steps that runs when something triggers it. You click a button, or you send a message that matches a pattern, or another process invokes it. The playbook runs once, start to finish, produces a specific output, and stops.
Example from the Ideas toolkit. When you expand an idea and click “Comparison chart”, a playbook called lens_comparison_chart fires. It takes the idea’s title, summary, and notes as input, runs one LLM step, produces a markdown comparison table, attaches it to the idea as an artifact, and is done. That’s a playbook.
Each lens button in the Ideas toolkit is its own playbook. Clicking “Risk analysis” fires a different one that produces a different kind of artifact.
A goal is a patrol
Section titled “A goal is a patrol”A goal is an ongoing mission your AI keeps pursuing on a schedule. You define the objective in prose (“keep this thing going”), set a cadence (every 6 hours, daily, weekly), and your AI checks in on that cadence. Every time it fires, the AI inspects the current state of your instance, decides what needs to happen next, and takes the actions that make sense.
Example from the Forge toolkit. Forge has a goal called “Content Pipeline” that fires every 6 hours. On each firing, your AI looks at every active content assignment, counts how many pieces have been produced against the target, and if any are behind, generates the missing ones. It might produce zero pieces one cycle and four the next. The goal doesn’t tell it how many to make or when, it tells it to keep the pipeline flowing.
A goal is closer to hiring a diligent assistant and saying “I want three blog posts a week, figure it out” than it is to writing a recipe.
Side-by-side
Section titled “Side-by-side”| Playbook | Goal | |
|---|---|---|
| Triggered by | A user click, an event, or being called by something else | A time schedule (every 6h, daily, weekly) |
| Runs how often | Once per trigger | Repeatedly, on the schedule |
| Flow | Fixed sequence of steps | Your AI decides each cycle |
| Input | Specific named variables | Whatever state your AI inspects |
| Output | A specific thing (document, data) | Whatever actions the AI judges necessary |
| Good for | ”Do this exact thing now" | "Keep watching and keep this going” |
A quick mental test
Section titled “A quick mental test”When you want automation and you’re not sure which to ask for, ask yourself: what’s the answer to “when does this run?”
- If the answer is a clock (“every morning”, “every Monday”, “once a day”), you want a goal.
- If the answer is an event or action (“when I click this”, “whenever I ask”, “when a new contact comes in”), you want a playbook.
- If the answer is both (“every morning, do this specific three-step thing”), it’s a goal whose rules tell the AI to invoke a specific playbook on each cycle.
Why the distinction matters to you
Section titled “Why the distinction matters to you”Three reasons.
1. It tells you how to phrase the request.
“Compare this idea against three alternatives” is a playbook request, it’s a specific thing done once. Ask Jarvis to run a lens or ask it directly.
“Every Monday, summarize what moved last week” is a goal request, it’s ongoing. Ask Jarvis to create a goal. If you ask for a playbook, you’ll only get one summary, and you’ll have to remember to ask again next Monday.
2. It tells you what happens if something fails.
A playbook fails visibly. You clicked the button, the button says “Failed at step 3, here’s the error”. You know immediately.
A goal fails quietly. It tried, it logged what went wrong, it’ll try again next cycle. You may not notice for a while. So goals are best for work where the ongoing cadence is the point and individual cycles are low-stakes. Not “deploy production”, but “check if the inbox has anything new”.
3. It tells you where to look when you want to change something.
Playbooks live in the Playbooks view in your sidebar, one row per playbook, editable in place. If a lens is producing a bad result, you edit the playbook’s prompt.
Goals live in the Goals view, one row per goal, with its rules text and schedule editable. If your content pipeline is producing too much or on the wrong cadence, you edit the goal.
When a toolkit uses each
Section titled “When a toolkit uses each”Most toolkits in Jootle use one pattern or the other, depending on their shape:
- Ideas uses playbooks. Each lens is a playbook. Ideas don’t get “watched” on a cadence; they sit until you act on them.
- Forge uses a goal. Content production is an ongoing obligation, and the AI has to decide what to make on each cycle based on the state of active assignments.
- Lists, CRM, Game Arcade use neither, they’re mostly interactive tools, not automation.
- Finance uses a goal (weekly review) plus playbooks (one-off reports you trigger).
When you install a toolkit from the library, the toolkit tells you what it brings. You’ll see playbooks appear in your Playbooks view and goals appear in your Goals view, or both.
Building your own
Section titled “Building your own”You can ask Jarvis to create either one for you, in plain English.
- Playbook: “Create a playbook I can click to summarize any project into a one-paragraph status for stakeholders.” Jarvis will design the steps, give it a name, and add it to your Playbooks view. You click it from any project going forward.
- Goal: “Each Friday afternoon, send me a summary of everything that moved this week across my projects.” Jarvis will create a goal with a weekly schedule and rules describing what to include.
You can edit either one afterward by going to its entry and updating the prompt or the schedule.
One last thing
Section titled “One last thing”If you ever find yourself writing a playbook that starts with “every day, check if …”, stop and make it a goal. If you find yourself writing a goal whose rules are “run this specific three-step procedure every time”, consider factoring that procedure out as a playbook and having the goal just invoke it.
The two patterns compose cleanly. A goal-driven patrol that invokes well-named playbooks is the most maintainable shape of ongoing work in Jootle.