I realized that I've written scripts that are "executable checklists", but didn't see it as a design pattern until reading this article. Typically such a script starts out as fully manual (do this, do that next, copy here, paste there..) then I replace steps as actual code, where I can, while some steps remain manual if needed.

Great use of such checklist scripts is on-boarding collaborators or new team members in a project.

Also, as grandparent comment pointed out, they reduce cognitive load by keeping the state of a process outside the head.