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Symphonies & Playbooks

Orchestrate multi-agent workflows with parallel execution and automated sequential playbooks for email processing, data routing, report generation, and more

Overview

OpenRails provides two complementary orchestration systems. Symphonies coordinate multiple agents running in parallel for complex tasks. Playbooks define automated multi-step task chains that can run on cron schedules — turning anything an agent can do into a repeatable, unattended process.

What playbooks can automate: Email triage and routing, customer onboarding workflows, incident response processes, scheduled report generation, data quality monitoring, compliance audits, document processing pipelines, and essentially any multi-step process that agents can handle.

Symphonies

A symphony is a multi-agent orchestration that coordinates multiple agents working on different aspects of a task simultaneously.

Navigate to Symphonies

From the Agents section, click the Symphonies tab.

Create a New Symphony

Click New Symphony and enter a name and description.

Add Agents

Add agents to the symphony and define their roles:

  • Agent Selection — Choose which agents participate
  • Execution Order — Define which agents run in parallel and which are sequential
  • Data Flow — Configure how output from one agent feeds into another

Configure Orchestration

Set global symphony settings:

  • Parallel Execution — Enable agents to run simultaneously where dependencies allow
  • Error Handling — Define behavior when an agent fails (stop all, continue others, retry)
  • Timeout — Set a global timeout for the entire symphony

Run the Symphony

Click Run to start the symphony. Monitor all agents from the symphony dashboard.

Playbooks

A playbook is an automated multi-step task chain where each step executes in order. Playbooks support cron scheduling, conditional branching, and human-in-the-loop approval gates for fully automated recurring execution.

Navigate to Playbooks

From the Agents section, click the Playbooks tab.

Create a New Playbook

Click New Playbook and enter a name and description.

Define Steps

Add steps to the playbook in order. Each step can be:

  • Agent Call — Invoke an agent with specific input (or output from a previous step)
  • Tool Invocation — Call a connected tool directly (database query, API call, web search, etc.)
  • Conditional Branch — Route execution based on previous step output
  • Data Transform — Map, filter, or restructure data between steps
  • Human Approval — Pause for human review before continuing
  • Notification — Send an alert via email, Teams, or webhook

Configure Scheduling

Set up automated execution with a cron schedule:

  • Cron Expression — Standard cron syntax (e.g., 0 9 * * MON for every Monday at 9 AM)
  • Timezone — Select the timezone for schedule evaluation
  • Enabled — Toggle scheduled execution on or off

Monitor Runs

View run history from the playbook dashboard. Each run shows step-by-step execution logs, timing, and outcomes.

Playbook Examples

Here are concrete examples showing the range of what playbooks can automate:

Daily Email Triage

Schedule: Every morning at 8:00 AM

Steps: Check inbox → Classify messages by topic and urgency → Route to correct team → Draft response suggestions → Send digest to manager

Customer Onboarding

Trigger: New application received

Steps: Receive application → Verify documents → Run compliance check (approval gate) → Create account → Send welcome package

Incident Response

Trigger: Monitoring alert

Steps: Classify severity → Pull relevant docs → Draft incident report → Notify on-call team via Teams → Track resolution

Weekly Executive Report

Schedule: Every Monday at 7:00 AM

Steps: Query databases for metrics → Gather project tool data → Generate analysis → Format report → Distribute to stakeholders

Data Quality Monitoring

Schedule: Hourly

Steps: Check new uploads → Validate format → Flag anomalies → Notify data team → Generate quality scorecard

Compliance Audit

Schedule: Weekly on Fridays

Steps: Scan new documents → Check against regulations → Flag violations → Generate summary → Route for human review

Symphonies vs. Playbooks

Feature Symphonies Playbooks
Execution Parallel (with dependencies) Sequential (with conditional branching)
Scheduling Primarily on-demand or triggered Cron scheduling, triggers, on-demand
Primary Purpose Multi-agent collaboration on complex tasks Automated repeatable task chains
Best For Complex tasks requiring multiple agent specialties Recurring workflows: email, reporting, onboarding, monitoring
Human-in-the-Loop Per-agent checkpoints Approval gates at any step
Step Logging Per-agent event logs Per-step execution logs with timing
Tip: Use symphonies when agents can work independently on different aspects of a problem. Use playbooks when you need a repeatable, scheduled process where each step depends on the output of the previous step — like email triage, report generation, or customer onboarding.
Important: Cron-scheduled playbooks run automatically. Ensure all agents in a scheduled playbook have appropriate budget limits and HITL gates to prevent unintended actions during unattended execution.

Next Steps