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Create a Playbook

Standardize and streamline contract review by creating a playbook directly from your contracts.

Last updated: Jul 20, 2026

Overview

What is a Playbook?

A Playbook is a guide to help individuals or teams efficiently and consistently review, analyze, and negotiate contracts. It typically consists of guidelines on how to handle key clauses (e.g., indemnification, limitation of liability, confidentiality, intellectual property).

These can be used in to help streamline contract review processes, saving time and ensuring consistency.

Who Should Use a Playbook?

Playbooks are designed for legal professionals who review contracts regularly, whether as part of a team or independently. If you find yourself applying the same negotiation positions or fallback language across reviews, a Playbook eliminates the need to start from scratch each time. Organizations with an existing negotiation guide, standard fallbacks, or preferred clause language can use a Playbook to bring that institutional knowledge directly into their Harvey workflow.

How Do Playbooks Work?

Playbook managers can create playbooks, then give users access to view the playbook and run it against a contract in Harvey for Word.

In practice, this can look like:

  • Uploading a standard playbook directly into the Harvey app and edit the clauses
  • Running a standard playbook against contracts in Harvey for Word to identify clauses that are acceptable, require review, or are unacceptable
  • Directly implementing redlined changes suggested by Harvey to align a clause with the playbook rule

Tip: For more information on using Playbooks in Word, review our guide for how to run a Playbook.

How to Create a Playbook

Note: The ability to create a playbook by uploading an existing playbook or contracts has been integrated in Harvey’s playbook creation agent.

There are two ways for Playbook managers to create a playbook in Harvey:

  • Create a playbook from a Harvey template and build it manually
  • Create a playbook with the playbook creation agent, using natural language and guided prompts in Assistant

Create a Playbook from a Harvey Template

Note: Sample playbooks are no longer available in the Harvey tab (in both Harvey and Harvey for Word). To access Harvey's pre-built starting points, use the template flow below.

  1. In the main navigation menu, select Build.
  2. Select Playbook Builder.
  3. In the upper right corner, select + Create.
  4. From the popup, select Edit Harvey’s template.
  5. Choose one of Harvey’s playbook templates:
    1. NDA
    2. MSA
    3. Commercial contracts
  6. Review and refine your playbook. Harvey will share a playbook draft along with a rule table, rule explanations and citations, and prompt suggestions. See below for more on editing a playbook.

Once your playbook is complete, you can share it or export it with other users in your organization. You can also edit it at any time.

Create a Playbook with the Playbook Creation Agent

Harvey’s playbook creation agent lets you build or refine a playbook with Assistant for a more guided, conversational experience. You can switch between conversational editing in Assistant and manual editing in the playbook editor at any time.

Harvey’s playbook creation agent can start a playbook from any of the following:

  • An existing playbook
  • Existing contracts (upload up to 10 recently negotiated contracts as examples)
  • Vault files
  • A Harvey-curated template (such as an NDA or MSA)
  • Comments on a marked-up document
  • From scratch

As you work, the agent can also:

  • Generate individual rules from context
  • Summarize each rule with an explanation and citations back to your source documents, so you can see why each rule was created
  • Offer one-click prompt suggestions to strengthen your playbook, such as “Find any gaps in playbook coverage,” “Make my rules more specific and enforceable,” and “Add fallback positions to each rule.”

To create a playbook:

  1. Open the playbook creation agent. You can open the agent two ways:
    1. From Assistant: In Assistant, tell Harvey to build a playbook. For example, "Make me a playbook".
      Image of text that says "make me an NDA playbook" within Harvey's Assistant prompt window
    2. From Build: From the main menu, select Build → Playbook Builder → + Create (upper right corner) → Playbook creation agent.
      Image of a two-box panel with one of the boxes emphasized in black and titled "Playbook creation agent"
  2. In the Assistant thread that opens, upload any relevant files in the prompt window, such as an existing playbook, standard form, template, or relevant executed precedents.
  3. Run your query. Harvey will propose rules, ask clarifying questions, and update the playbook as you go.
  4. Review and refine your playbook. Harvey will share a playbook draft along with a rule table, rule explanations and citations, and prompt suggestions. See below for more on editing a playbook.

Once your playbook is complete, you can share it or export it with other users in your organization. You can also edit it at any time.

How To Edit A Playbook

Playbook managers can edit a playbook manually with the playbook editor or edit with Assistant using natural language and guided prompts.

Edit a Playbook With the Playbook Editor

The playbook editor panel will appear whenever you create a playbook or open an existing one.

In the editor, you can:

  • Add, reorder, delete, and search across rules
  • Set global guidance that applies across the entire playbook
  • Capture more nuance with expanded rule fields, including guidance, positions, and support for conditional rules

To edit a playbook with the playbook editor:

  1. Open the playbook you want to modify. Each playbook rule will appear in a list to the left of your playbook.
    Image of rules appearing in a panel in Harvey's Playbook creation agent.
  2. In the playbook rules list, you can:
    Image of different sections of playbook rules labeled A, B and C
    1. Search: Use the search bar at the top of the panel to find a rule.
    2. Add: Select the + button to add a new rule to the playbook.
    3. Reorder: Select the ⠿ by each rule and drag it to reorder it.
  3. In the editor panel to the right, you can:
    Image of Harvey's playbook editor panel with sections labeled A, B and C
    1. Improve your positions: Rewrite and optimize your copy with the context of the rule.
    2. Mark a rule as optional: Flag rules that aren't required for every agreement, so reviewers know they can be waived or negotiated.
    3. Delete a rule or position: Select the trashcan icon to remove irrelevant rules or positions.
  4. Set AI guidance that gives Harvey instructions on how to review / redline the contract or rule.
    Image of AI guidance fields being highlighted in Harvey's Playbook editor
  5. Set an Action on any rule that requires a human step or escalation during review. Each Action has a field for:
    Image of Playbook actions being highlighted in Harvey's Playbook editor
    1. Scenario [optional]: Describes when the action applies.
    2. Instruction: Describes what the reviewer should do.
  6. Once you’re finished refining your playbook, select Save.

Edit a Playbook with Assistant

  1. Open the playbook you want to modify.
  2. Select Edit with Harvey. This opens an Assistant thread panel with your playbook attached so you can rewrite, improve, or re-structure rules.
    Image of button labeled "Edit with Harvey" being selected in the upper right corner of Harvey's Playbook editor
  3. In the thread, describe the changes you want. For example, “Tighten the indemnification rule to require mutual indemnity” or “Add an escalation for uncapped liability positions.”
    Image of Assistant thread panel on the left side of Harvey's Playbook editor.
  4. Review Harvey’s suggestions in the live Playbook panel alongside the conversation.
  5. Select Save to save changes to your playbook.

Sharing Access to a Playbook

Playbook managers can give users either “view” or “edit” access to a specific playbook. For steps on granting access, follow Playbook Builder Permissions.

Exporting a Playbook Review

After running a playbook review, you can export the results from Word or web Assistant:

Exporting A Playbook From Word

Image of exporting a playbook review in word
  1. From the Playbook review, select the download icon from the top menu.
  2. Under Document type, Select Word.
  3. Select Export to export your summary.

Exporting A Playbook From Web Assistant

Image of export options selected in Harvey's playbook editor.
  1. From the playbook review, select Export to export the redlined DOCX directly to your device, vault, or document management system.
  2. Alternatively, select + Add to Vault to store the redlined document in a matter Vault for later access.

Note: If you ran the review in web Assistant and want to continue editing in Word, download the redlined DOCX and open it directly in Word.

Workflow Agents Overview

Use Harvey’s streamlined Workflow agents to quickly accomplish your tasks, without the need to prompt.

Getting Started with Agent Builder

Create and share custom Workflow agents to automate repetitive tasks and elevate your team's output.

Playbook Builder Permissions

Learn how playbook permissions work.

Manage Permissions and Sharing in Agent Builder

Learn how to manage Workflow agent permissions, grant view and run access, and share Workflow agents across your workspace—from creation and collaboration through admin approval and publication.

Embed Vaults and Knowledge Sources in Workflow Builder

Learn how to embed sources in custom workflows to help your team produce more accurate, consistent, and context-aware results.