What is the role and purpose of Playbooks in automation and system management?

Playbooks in automation and system management are sets of instructions or scripts that describe a sequence of actions for configuring, deploying, and managing infrastructure.

Their roles and purposes:

• Automating repetitive tasks (software installation, server configuration).
• Ensuring consistency and predictability of processes.
• Documenting infrastructure management processes.
• Simplifying scaling and support of systems.

For example, in Ansible, a playbook describes which packages to install, which files to copy, and which services to start on remote servers.