The existing Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) should be the primary reference when designing a Splunk SOAR playbook. A playbook is fundamentally an automation implementation of an established operational process; therefore, the engineer should first understand the SOC-approved sequence of investigation, enrichment, decision, containment, escalation, and remediation steps before converting suitable portions into automated actions.
The SOP defines what should happen, in what order, under which conditions, and with what human approval requirements . Once that workflow is understood, deterministic and repeatable steps can be automated while judgment-intensive or high-impact actions can retain analyst approval gates. The supplied Cybersecurity Defense Engineer material supports this workflow-oriented design through its coverage of SOPs, Workbooks, response templates, and SOAR playbooks as mechanisms for standardizing and automating analyst processes.
MITRE ATT & CK is valuable for mapping adversary behavior and detection coverage, while CIS provides control guidance. Existing investigation actions may inform implementation, but none replaces the organization ' s approved operating procedure as the authoritative workflow definition.
Study Guide topics: SOPs, SOAR playbooks, workflow automation, Workbooks, response templates, analyst process standardization, automation guardrails.
