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A playbook is your house position written down once, at the clause level, in a form the AI can act on. It records the wording you want, how far you will flex, the line you will not cross, and who has to sign off when a deal goes past it. Once a playbook exists, drafting generates toward it and review scores counterparty paper against it, so every document is measured against your standard instead of a generic one.
Screenshot of the Playbooks list showing saved negotiation playbooks

The Negotiation Playbooks intro, showing what you can do with a playbook today

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What a playbook holds

Each playbook covers one contract type and holds one rule per clause. Every rule is organized into three layers, which the editor surfaces as three tabs. Only the preferred position is required. A playbook with nothing but preferred wording still works. The rest of the fields are what turn it from a style guide into something that can gate a deal.
Start in Simple detail level, which shows only the preferred position and acceptable range for each clause. Switch to Advanced when you want fallback ladders, numeric limits, approvals, and risk weighting. The editor picks Advanced automatically if the playbook already has that depth.

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Four ways to start

Clone a template

28 curated starting points covering both sides of 14 agreement types, already carrying fallback ladders, walk-away floors, and sign-off rules.

Build from scratch

Name it, pick a contract type, add clause rules one at a time. Best when your positions are unusual enough that no template is close.

Import from a contract

Upload or paste a contract you already negotiated. Vaquill splits it into clauses and infers a starting position for each one.

Upload an export

Bring a playbook over from another account or workspace using the portable export file.

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Where a playbook gets used

Attach a playbook and the drafter writes toward your preferred wording, using linked clause text verbatim where you set one. The editor then shows a per-section verdict of Preferred, Fallback, or Needs attention, plus a weighted risk band for the draft as a whole.Flagged sections are fixable in place: the banner offers to drop the on-playbook wording in as a tracked change. See Drafting.
Run inbound paper against the playbook to get per-clause deviations, redline suggestions aimed at your fallback positions, and a sign-off gate on anything that needs senior approval before it goes back out. Later negotiation rounds accept the version you sent, so the redlines target what actually changed rather than the whole contract. See Contract Review.
For scoring many contracts against a playbook at once, with a per-issue scorecard and a draft negotiation email, use the Contract Playbook Review workflow. That workflow reads a playbook you upload as a document, which is a different path from the structured playbooks described here.

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In this section

Starter Templates

The 28 built-in playbooks, what each one is tuned for, and how to preview before you clone.

Building a Playbook

Create, add clause rules, test-drive the result, and compare it against the market-standard baseline.

Clause Rules

Every field on a clause rule and what it changes downstream.

Import From Contracts

Turn signed contracts into a playbook, including consensus across a whole folder of them.

Structure Check

The authoring linter that catches gaps before a playbook ever sees a deal.

Sign-Off Gates

Approval levels, conditional escalation, walk-away floors, and how they block a send.

Playbook Health

How each clause is performing against your real redline history, plus coverage gaps and staleness.

Drift Suggestions

Where your team’s actual behavior has diverged from what the playbook says.

Versions, Sharing, and Export

Version history, defaults per contract type, team sharing, and the portable export file.

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Limitations

  • A playbook is scoped to one contract type. If your vendor terms and your customer terms differ, that is two playbooks, not one.
  • Positions are mostly free text, and the AI interprets them. Vague wording produces vague enforcement. Numeric limits and fallback ladders are far more reliable than a paragraph of prose.
  • A playbook only drives a draft or a review when it is attached or resolved as the default for that contract type. Nothing is applied globally.
  • Editing is owner-only. Teammates can read and use a shared playbook but must duplicate it to change positions.
  • Sign-off gates flag, and in deep review block. They do not route to a named approver, integrate with an approval system, or know your org chart.
  • Health and drift analytics need recorded review decisions before they say anything. A new playbook shows no signal for a while.
  • Nothing here is legal advice. The built-in defaults and templates are market-standard starting points that need a lawyer’s review before you rely on them.

Drafting

Generate drafts that use your playbook language and show per-section compliance.

Contract Review

Score and redline inbound contracts against your playbook.

Clause Library

Keep vetted clause text in one place and link it into playbook positions.

Contract Playbook Review workflow

Score up to 500 contracts against an uploaded playbook document in one run.