PagerDuty Automation Actions invoke jobs that are staged in Runbook Automation (SaaS or Self-Hosted). An Action can also invoke a script run by an installed Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner. By associating Automation Actions with a PagerDuty service, responders get push-button access to a library of defined diagnostic or remediation actions, resulting in shorter resolution times and fewer disruptive escalations.

Automation Actions can also be used as part of an Event Orchestration to enrich incident data with diagnostics information or perform remediation actions on incidents automatically.

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Automated Diagnostics

Check out our Automated Diagnostics solution, which offers a prebuilt library of automation jobs that were specifically designed to be invoked using Automation Actions from within PagerDuty.

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Availability

This feature is available to accounts on the following pricing plans: Business, Digital Operations (legacy), Enterprise for Incident Management, Customer Service Business, Customer Service Digital Operations (legacy) and Enterprise for Customer Service:

• Business Plans: Accounts must have the Event Intelligence and PagerDuty Automation Actions add-ons.
• Digital Operations (legacy) and Enterprise for Incident Management Plans: Accounts must have the PagerDuty Automation Actions add-on.

Please contact our Sales team if you are interested in PagerDuty AIOps, and you may fill out this form if you are interested in Automation Actions.

Configure Automation Actions

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Runner Configuration

A Runner is the invocation method of an Automation Action. There are two types of Runners available: Runbook Automation Self-Hosted and Runbook Automation.

A software package must be downloaded, installed, and configured when configuring a Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner. This type of Runner is best paired with PagerDuty Runbook Automation Self-Hosted, but it can also be used to invoke a local script or a job in Rundeck OSS (version 4.0 and greater).

When configuring a Runbook Automation Runner, an API token for a valid Runbook Automation account is required to complete the setup wizard and create a link between a set of PagerDuty Incident Response and Runbook Automation accounts.

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Required User Permissions

A PD Automation Actions user license is required for this feature. Please read Flexible Licensing for more information about assigning users a specific license type.

Users with the following roles can create, edit and delete Automation Actions and Runners:

• Account Owner
• Admin/Global Admin

Users with the following roles can create, edit and delete Automation Actions and Runners associated with their Teams:

• Manager Team roles

Users with the following roles can run Automation Actions on incidents:

• Account Owner
• Admin/Global Admin
• Manager base roles
• Responder

Users with the following roles can view all Automation Actions and Runners:

• Account Owner
• Admin/Global Admin
• Manager
• Responder
• Observer

There are two ways to create a Runner with PagerDuty:

• Create A Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner for our self-hosted automation platform.
• Create A Runbook Automation Runner for our SaaS-based workflow automation.

Create A Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner

Create a PagerDuty API Key

In the PagerDuty web app:

1. Navigate to Integrations API Access Keys and click Create New API Key.
2. Enter a Description that will help you identify the key later on. If you would like it to be read-only, check the Read-only option.
3. Click Create Key.
4. This will generate a unique key for the REST API. Copy it to a safe place, as you will not have access to copy this key again. Once it has been copied, click Close.
   *If you lose a key, then you will need to delete it and create a new one.

Create a PagerDuty Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Token

In PagerDuty Runbook Automation Self-Hosted:

5. Go to User Icon Profile.
6. To the right of User API Tokens, click .
7. Enter a name for the API token and click Generate New Token.
8. Copy the User API Token and keep it in a safe place for later use.

Create a PagerDuty Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Project

9. Create a Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Project that will contain the Job you’d like PagerDuty responders to be able to execute.

Create a PagerDuty Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Job

10. Create a Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Job in the Project. After the job is created, copy its ID and keep it in a safe place for later use.

Create a Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner

Next, you will add a new runner to generate an ID and secret.

11. In PagerDuty, navigate to Automation Automation Actions Runners tab Add Runner.
12. Select the Process Automation runner type, and click Continue.
13. Enter a Name and Description and click Continue.
14. On the following screen, click Download ID & Secret to download the file credentials.pdrunner-creds, and click Confirm.
15. Open credentials.pdrunner-creds in your preferred text editor, replace <API_Token> with the PagerDuty API key from step 8 above, and save the file:

id:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX3P1C
secret:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX2I4B
token:<PagerDuty_API_TOKEN>
rundeck_url: http://localhost:4440
rundeck_token: <Your_Saved_PagerDuty_Process_Automation_API_TOKEN>

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Security Tip

If you do not wish to store your runner credentials in plaintext, you can use environment variables instead. In zsh, for example, you can set can set an environment variable for the runner ID by adding export RUNNER_ID=<runner-id-value> to .zshenv and then running source ~/.zshenv to activate it.

After setting and activating environment variables for id, secret, token, rundeck_url and rundeck_token, you can update the credentials file:

id:${RUNNER_ID}                                                             
secret:${RUNNER_SECRET}
token:${RUNNER_PDTOKEN}
rundeck_url:${RUNNER_CLOUD_RDKCLIENT_URL}
rundeck_token:${RUNNER_CLOUD_RDKCLIENT_TOKEN}

16. Run the following commands in order to install Java 11+ on the machine that will host the runner. We recommend Linux (Ubuntu 18) or higher. If the operating system is reasonably new, we also recommend performing an update:
    a. Update the Ubuntu version.

    Shell

    sudo apt-get update
    

    b. Install the open source Java version that the runner uses.

    Shell

    sudo apt install openjdk-11-jre-headless
    

    c. Create a folder on your system in a preferred directory where you would like to place the credentials files.

    Shell

    mkdir automation_runner
    

    d. Navigate to the runner’s directory.

    Shell

    cd automation_runner
    

    e. Move the file credentials.pdrunner-creds from step 14 above into the automation_runner folder you just created. It should already contain the PagerDuty API key from step 15.

    f. Rename the file to pdrunner-creds.

    Shell

    mv credentials.pdrunner-creds .pdrunner-creds
    

    g. Download the latest runner software from PagerDuty.

    Shell

    wget https://runbook-actions.pagerduty.com/pd-runner.jar
    

    h. View the current files in the directory: .pdrunner-creds and pd-runner.jar.

    Shell

    ls -larths
    

    i. Launch pd-runner.

    Shell

    java -jar pd-runner.jar
    

    j. (Optional) Verify activity in runner.log.

    Shell

    tail -f /home/ubuntu/automation_runner/runner/logs/runner.log
    

17. Check the runner’s status in PagerDuty: Automation Automation Actions Runners. A green check mark indicates that the runner is active and running successfully. A red circle indicates that the runner is not running or there is a problem with the runner. Please verify your Java 11+ installation and check the local runner logs, or refer to our Automation Actions FAQ.

Create an Automation Action with a Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner

Once the Script & On Prem runner is running successfully, you can add an action.

18. In PagerDuty, navigate to Automation Automation Actions Actions tab and click Add Action.
19. Select a Script & On Prem runner, and click Continue.
20. Perform the following:

Create A Runbook Automation Runner

Create a PagerDuty Runbook Automation Token

In Runbook Automation (Rundeck):

1. Go to User Icon Profile.
2. To the right of User API Tokens, click .
3. Enter a name for the API token and click Generate New Token
4. Copy the User API Token and keep it in a safe place for later use.

Create a PagerDuty Runbook Automation Project

5. Create a Runbook Automation Project that will contain the Job you’d like PagerDuty responders to be able to execute.

Create a PagerDuty Runbook Automation Job

6. Create a Runbook Automation Job in the Project. After the job is created, copy its ID and keep it in a safe place for later use.

Create a Runbook Automation Runner

7. In PagerDuty, navigate to Automation Automation Actions Runners tab Add Runner.
8. Select the Runbook Automation runner type, and click Continue.
9. Enter a Name and Description and click Continue.
10. On the following screen, enter your Runbook Automation instance’s subdomain and Runbook Automation User API key from step 4 above, and click Confirm.
11. The confirmation page will present a green check mark indicating that the runner is active and running successfully.

Create an Automation Action with a Runbook Automation Runner

Once the Runbook Automation runner is running successfully, you can add an action.

12. In PagerDuty, navigate to Automation Automation Actions Actions tab and click Add Action.
13. Select a Runbook Automation runner, and click Continue.
14. Select a Runbook Automation Job that is available for the Runbook Automation runner from the list.
15. Perform the following:

16. Select Continue to complete the configuration. You may repeat step 12 to create more actions.

Context Variables

Use Context Variables in Automation Actions

You can enrich Runbook Automation Self-Hosted, Runbook Automation, and Script actions with context variables that use data from the first triggering alert attached to an incident. Where possible, you should send event data to PagerDuty in our Common Event Format (PD-CEF), since using standardized event data will make it easier to reuse actions for multiple event types.

You can reference alert fields using ${pd.alert.key} syntax, where key is the path of the JSON key name (for example, ${pd.alert.details.target.name}). We also support square bracket notation for cases where event data may contain arrays or fields with dots in the name (for example, ${pd.alert.details.nodes[0].hostname}).

Context Variable Placeholders

The following placeholders are available:

${incident.id}
${incident.first_alert_id}
${user.id}
${pd.alert.client}
${pd.alert.severity}
${pd.alert.dedup_key}
${pd.alert.event_class}
${pd.alert.source_component}
${pd.alert.source_group}
${pd.alert.source_origin}
${pd.alert.description}
${pd.alert.creation_time}

Incident Metadata

Above, you’ll notice two incident metadata context variables, ${incident.id}, and ${user.id}. These context variables represent the obfuscated incident ID of the incident and the user ID that invoked the Automation Action (i.e., the user ID of the person that pushed the button in the web or mobile app).

${pd.incident.id}
${user.id}

Examples

PagerDuty Automation Action (Script)

PagerDuty Automation Action (Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Job)

PagerDuty Automation Action (Runbook Automation Job)

Search and Filter

You can search and filter any Automation Actions and Runners that have already been created. Navigate to Automation Automation Actions and use the following features in their respective tabs:

Actions Tab

• Search: You may search by action name.
• Filters:
  • Services
  • Teams
  • Type
  • Category

Runners Tab

• Search: You may search by runner name or description.
• Filter:
  • Status

Configure Automation Actions Log

The Automation Actions Log reduces the time responders need to diagnose an issue and plan their next actions by providing a summarized list of diagnostics and remediation results that were triggered during the incident.

To use the Automation Actions Log, you must first add the PagerDuty Incident Output log filter at the global or step level of a given job in Process or Runbook Automation. This log filter can capture a regex capture group or a configurable number of lines of the logs generated (last 5, 10, 25, or all log lines). A custom text annotation can be added to each output.

To enable credentials for Incident Output to be sent successfully back to PagerDuty Incident Response:

1. Configure the PagerDuty plugin at either the system or project level with a global PagerDuty API key and a valid PagerDuty user email.

2. When creating or editing a job, enable Send Incident Output to PagerDuty on the Execution Plugins tab.

3. You can add Incident Output log filters at a job's global or step level. Multiple filters can be configured at each level. Each filter configured creates a separate entry in the action log view on an incident. The filter is evaluated for every step/node combination run during a given job.

4. After an Automation Action has been triggered, data returned from each Incident Output filter can be viewed in the Automation Actions Log tab on an incident. Each Automation Action run creates a parent record that can be expanded to view the details of the workflow node/step data collected from the completed job.

Delete an Automation Action

1. Go to Automation Automation Actions.
2. With the Actions tab selected, select the name of your desired action to go to its detail page.
3. In the top right, click Delete Action.
4. In the confirmation dialog, click Yes, delete.

Run an Action on an Incident

Once you have configured configured Automation Actions, PagerDuty responders can run them on incidents. Automation Actions can run either a provided script or trigger a Job in PagerDuty Process or Runbook Automation. Results of actions can be viewed on the Automation Actions Log tab.

Run an Automation Action in the Web App

1. Navigate to an open incident on a service where the Automation Action is configured, click Run Actions and select your desired action.
2. Click Run Job (or Run Script) when prompted.

Run an Action in the Mobile App

1. Tap an incident to view its details page, then tap Automation Actions. Alternatively, you may also tap More Automation Actions.
2. Select your preferred Automation Action from the list, then tap Run Script or Run Job, depending on the type of action that was selected.
3. The Output tab will reveal the output of the script that was run or the job that was selected.
4. The incident will also have a history of all Automation Actions that have been run on the incident in the Initiated Automation Actions section. Tap View [x] Actions and then tap an action to see its details.

Run an Action in Slack

You can execute a PagerDuty Automation Action from Slack, provided the following prerequisites are fulfilled:

• You have configured the Slack V2 Next Generation integration
• An active Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Runner

1. In Slack, trigger an incident with the /pd trigger command.
   • Read more about PagerDuty slash command in Slack
2. Select More actions… Run an action.
   • If prompted, please follow the steps to authorize your user in Slack.

3. Select an action from the dropdown.
4. Review the action’s details and click Run.

A message posts in Slack when an action begins, as well as when it finishes. Select View output report in the completion message for full details about the action.

Run an Action in Incident Workflows

You can select Automation Actions as a step in Incident Workflows. Read Incident Workflows for more information.

View Automation Action Output

You can view logs captured from Runbook Automation (SaaS and Self-Hosted) in the Automation Actions Log tab on an incident's details page. Each entry in the table corresponds to an Automation Action or Runbook Automation Job. You can expand the entry to see the job's targeted nodes and the steps executed against each node.

1. Navigate to an incident's details page and select Automation Actions Log tab to see in progress and completed actions results.
2. Access the job's output through the View output report link on each action result, or in the incident timeline's record of the completed action.

3. (Optional): To see the full Runbook Automation (SaaS or Self-Hosted) job details, click View full output on the Output Report page.

4. Click View full output in Process Automation to view the Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Job and see the results.

5. Select the Script tab on the output report to see the detailed view of the Process or Runbook Automation Job that ran.

6. The Script and Context tabs detail the settings and alert context captured at runtime of the action.

PagerDuty Advance for Automation Digest

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Availability

PagerDuty Advance for Automation Digest is available in US and EU service regions.

PagerDuty Advance for Automation Digest synthesizes log output generated by Automation Action invocations and automatically generates a digest which provides:

• Incident details
• Action details
• Log summary
• Suggested next steps

To generate a PagerDuty Advance for Automation Digest:

1. Navigate to your desired incident and scroll to the Automation Actions Log tab.
2. Click Generate in the upper right to generate the Automation Digest.

FAQ

How does a Runbook Automation Runner connect to my Runbook Automation Account?

What network port does a runner use?

What happens if I trigger an action and the runner is down?

How long does it take for an inactive runner to switch to offline (red status)?

What should the successful messages look like in the runner.log?

ubuntu@ip-172-31-18-60:~$ more /home/ubuntu/automation_runner/runner/logs/runner.log 
10:33:16.643 [main] INFO  io.micronaut.context.env.DefaultEnvironment - Established active environments: [ec2, cloud]
10:33:18.389 [main] INFO  com.dtolabs.automation.core.plugins.JarPluginScanner - Deleting plugin jar cache at /home/ubuntu/runner/runner/var/tmp/pluginJars
10:33:18.389 [main] INFO  com.dtolabs.automation.core.plugins.JarPluginScanner - Deleting plugin lib dependency directory at /home/ubuntu/runner/runner/plugin-cache
10:33:18.450 [main] INFO  io.micronaut.flyway.AbstractFlywayMigration - Running migrations for database with qualifier [default]
10:33:18.452 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.license.VersionPrinter - Flyway Community Edition 7.5.3 by Redgate
10:33:18.621 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.database.base.DatabaseType - Database: jdbc:sqlite:/home/ubuntu/runner/runner/storage/db.sqlite (SQLite 3.32)
10:33:18.657 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.command.DbValidate - Successfully validated 1 migration (execution time 00:00.011s)
10:33:18.664 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.schemahistory.JdbcTableSchemaHistory - Creating Schema History table "main"."flyway_schema_history" ...
10:33:18.699 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.command.DbMigrate - Current version of schema "main": << Empty Schema >>
10:33:18.702 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.command.DbMigrate - Migrating schema "main" to version "1 - create tables"
10:33:18.713 [main] INFO  org.flywaydb.core.internal.command.DbMigrate - Successfully applied 1 migration to schema "main" (execution time 00:00.015s)
10:33:19.210 [main] INFO  io.micronaut.runtime.Micronaut - Startup completed in 2652ms. Server Running: http://localhost:4441

Is the runner process running on Ubuntu?

ubuntu   19741  0.7  9.6 3758548 386980 pts/0  Sl+  10:33   0:55 java -jar pd-runner.jar
ubuntu   20385  0.0  0.0  14860  1144 pts/2    S+   12:35   0:00 grep --color=auto -i runner

Is it possible to reveal the PagerDuty incident ID or the user who ran the Runbook Action from within a script?

# script
df -h
echo "script ran by user:" ${user.id}
echo "for incident id" ${incident.id}

How can I set up the Automation Action with a Runbook Automation Self-Hosted Job that requires passing a PagerDuty incident ID as a variable?

Is it possible to disable the execution of Script Actions?

script_type_actions_enabled: false

java -jar -Drunner.cloud.agentScriptOperations.enabled=false pd-runner.jar

13:55:37.023 [main] INFO  com.rundeck.sidecar.agent.operations.OperationService - Runner started. Version: 0.1.28 Operations registered: [RundeckCommand, TriggerRundeckJob, CancelInvocation, Ping, ExecuteAgentScript (disabled via configuration), RundeckFileCopy]

What is the minimum version of Rundeck OSS that can integrate with Automation Actions?