Playbooks.

A Playbook is a document Penny reads as guidance. Use one for a house style, creative process, or review criteria you would otherwise repeat in every prompt. You choose the Playbook for a conversation in Graph or Lab.

#Reuse the method, change the brief

Put lasting instructions in the Playbook: tone, composition, what to preserve, and how to judge the result. Keep the current subject, references, format, output count, and requested actions in your message.

Example active Playbook, Product imagery: use soft, natural side light; choose a warm, neutral surface; keep the product label readable and add no extra lettering. The current request asks for one written image prompt for a green tea tin in a square composition, without generating an image. An illustrative composition combines that subject and format with the Playbook's lighting, setting, and label instructions. Changing the brief to a kraft coffee bag in a wide composition changes the subject and format while retaining the method. These are authored examples, not a model response or a generated result.

A Playbook supplies guidance for composing the work. An executable Skill supplies an action Penny can call. Activating a Playbook does not execute a workflow, add provider access, or grant permission to spend.

#Add a Playbook

Open Browser from the view dock, choose Playbooks, then Add:

• Write a new one opens an editor with Title, Description, and Content. Fill all three, then save.
• Load from disk reads Markdown files. You can also drop files into the Playbooks library.
• Paste from clipboard imports a complete Playbook document, or opens the editor so you can add a title and description to plain text.

The Description helps you choose a Playbook in the picker. Put the actual instructions in Content; the description is not included as Penny's guidance.

Imports show a review step before saving. Check the title, description, size, and any replaces an existing playbook notice, then choose Save playbook or Save all. Reusing a document's name can replace the existing Playbook. Use a distinct name when you want to keep both versions.

#Write an importable document

Include a name and description in frontmatter, with the instructions below it. This is a complete example you can adapt:

---
name: product-imagery
description: Use when composing product image prompts for our catalogue.
---

# Product imagery

- Use soft, natural side light.
- Choose a warm, neutral surface.
- Keep the product label readable. Add no extra lettering.

Review imported instructions before activating them. Short, concrete rules are easier to apply than a long document mixing several unrelated methods.

#Activate it for a conversation

1. Open the intended Penny conversation in Graph or Lab.
2. Click the Playbooks book icon in the message bar.
3. Tick the Playbook you want to use. The footer shows 1 of 1 active and an approximate token count.
4. To switch Playbooks, untick the current one or choose Clear, then select the replacement. The other entries are unavailable while one is active.

Penny uses your selection; it does not choose a Playbook automatically. Saving one to the library is separate from activating it. A new conversation starts without an active Playbook, so check the book icon when changing conversations.

The token count estimates how much context the document uses. It is not a price or a quote for the whole task. A focused Playbook leaves more room for the conversation and references.

#Edit and reuse the text

Open its card in Browser → Playbooks. Existing content opens in a rendered view; choose Edit beside Content to change the Markdown and Preview to check it before saving. The title and description can be edited there too.

The card's Playbook actions menu offers Send to graph as a Text node. That copies the document body into the current project so another operation can use it as data. It does not activate the Playbook, and later Playbook edits do not update the copy already placed in the graph.

#Size limits

Field	Limit
Content	150,000 characters
Title	80 characters
Description	2,000 characters
Saved Playbooks	200 per user
Active Playbooks	1 per conversation

Oversized content is refused rather than silently shortened. Split unrelated methods into separate Playbooks and activate the one the current task needs.

#If the guidance is not taking effect

Check that the Playbook is active in this conversation, the latest edits were saved, and the instructions are in Content rather than only the description. If you cannot select another Playbook, clear the current one first. If import fails, read the named document's error and check its description, nonempty content, and size.

Guidance is not a guarantee that a generated result meets every requirement. Inspect the actual work, give Penny specific feedback, and keep the requested action explicit when moving from a draft to execution.

For a reusable operation, use a Skill. For graph changes, ask Penny to report what changed and what actually ran; see Building and editing graphs with Penny.