How It Works

From brain dump to playbook in 15 minutes

No blank pages. No writer's block. Just a conversation about what you know, turned into a playbook your team can actually follow.

1

Start an interview

Pick a process you want to document

Choose from templates (onboarding, client handoff, incident response) or start from scratch. Tell Understudy what you want to document in one sentence.

Step 1
What process do you want to document?
"How we onboard new clients in our accounting firm"
2

Talk naturally

AI asks smart follow-ups about edge cases, decision points, exceptions

Just explain your process like you're training a new hire. Understudy asks clarifying questions: What happens if X? Who handles Y? What's the most common mistake?

Step 2
Understudy: What happens when a new client signs?
You: First we send them our onboarding checklist...
Understudy: What if they don't have all their tax documents ready?
3

Review your playbook

AI structures everything into steps, roles, decision trees

Your conversation becomes a step-by-step playbook with decision points, edge cases, and context. Edit anything that's not quite right.

Step 3
Step 1: Send onboarding checklist
Step 2: Schedule kickoff call
If missing docs → set follow-up
4

Share with your team

New hires follow it on day one

Export to PDF, Notion, Confluence, or share a link. Playbooks are searchable, versionable, and actually useful.

Step 4
Shared with 8 team members
Searchable across all playbooks
Exported to Notion, Confluence

Real Examples

What an interview looks like

The AI asks targeted questions to pull out the details that never make it into written docs.

Onboarding process
Understudy asks:
What happens on a new hire's first day?
You answer:
"HR sends them their laptop credentials and Slack invite. Their manager sets up a 30-minute intro call. We don't give them project work yet — just reading docs and meeting the team."
Incident response
Understudy asks:
What's the first thing you do when the API goes down?
You answer:
"Check the status dashboard. If it's not showing an outage, check CloudWatch logs for the last 15 minutes. 90% of the time it's a rate limit issue from a misconfigured client."
Client handoff
Understudy asks:
How do you decide what goes in the handoff doc?
You answer:
"Client history, what they've bought, their quirks — like if they prefer email over phone. Also any custom integrations they're running and who their main contact is on their side."

No blank page. No writer's block.

Traditional documentation tools give you an empty page and wish you luck. Understudy guides you through the conversation.

Traditional Wiki

Understudy

Blank Confluence page
Guided conversation
Writer's block for hours
15-minute interview
Missing edge cases
AI probes for exceptions
Outdated within weeks
Version history + easy updates
Nobody reads it
Actually useful for new hires

Turn your first brain dump into a playbook

15 minutes. One conversation. A playbook your team can follow tomorrow.

Try it free See pricing