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Incident Response

AnthropicOfficialPublished by Anthropic

  • Skill
  • Workflow
  • Software development
  • Apache-2.0
  • No issues found

From the author

Run an incident response workflow — triage, communicate, and write postmortem. Trigger with "we have an incident", "production is down", an alert that needs severity assessment, a status update mid-incident, or when writing a blameless postmortem after resolution.
— the description by Anthropic

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

The incident-response skill provides a standardized framework for handling service disruptions. It guides teams through the critical phases of incident management: triage and severity assessment, communication, mitigation tracking, and post-incident analysis. By enforcing a consistent structure for status updates and postmortem reports, it helps teams maintain clarity, accountability, and a blameless culture during high-pressure situations.

What it does

  • Assesses incident severity based on predefined impact criteria
  • Generates structured status updates for internal and external stakeholders
  • Facilitates the creation of blameless postmortem reports
  • Guides root cause analysis using the 5 Whys technique
  • Tracks incident timelines and mitigation actions
  • Supports integration with monitoring, chat, and incident management tools

When to use it

  • When a production service experiences downtime or degradation
  • When you need to perform a severity assessment on a new alert
  • When providing regular status updates during an active incident
  • When conducting a post-incident review to identify process improvements

Advantages

  • Reduces cognitive load during high-stress incidents
  • Ensures consistent communication across all stakeholders
  • Promotes a blameless culture focused on system improvements
  • Standardizes the documentation of root causes and action items

Usage examples

“/incident-response new Production API is returning 500 errors for all users.”
The agent initiates a new incident, assesses the severity as SEV1, and prompts for role assignments and initial mitigation steps.
“/incident-response update We have identified the database connection pool exhaustion and are restarting the services.”
The agent generates a formatted status update with the current status, actions taken, and next steps.
“/incident-response postmortem”
The agent compiles the collected incident data into a structured postmortem document, including the timeline, 5 Whys analysis, and action items.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/anthropics/incident-response/download
  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip incident-response.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Anthropic

/incident-response

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Manage an incident from detection through postmortem.

Usage

/incident-response $ARGUMENTS

Modes

/incident-response new [description]     # Start a new incident
/incident-response update [status]       # Post a status update
/incident-response postmortem            # Generate postmortem from incident data

If no mode is specified, ask what phase the incident is in.

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    INCIDENT RESPONSE                               │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Phase 1: TRIAGE                                                  │
│  ✓ Assess severity (SEV1-4)                                     │
│  ✓ Identify affected systems and users                          │
│  ✓ Assign roles (IC, comms, responders)                         │
│                                                                    │
│  Phase 2: COMMUNICATE                                              │
│  ✓ Draft internal status update                                  │
│  ✓ Draft customer communication (if needed)                     │
│  ✓ Set up war room and cadence                                   │
│                                                                    │
│  Phase 3: MITIGATE                                                 │
│  ✓ Document mitigation steps taken                               │
│  ✓ Track timeline of events                                      │
│  ✓ Confirm resolution                                            │
│                                                                    │
│  Phase 4: POSTMORTEM                                               │
│  ✓ Blameless postmortem document                                 │
│  ✓ Timeline reconstruction                                       │
│  ✓ Root cause analysis (5 whys)                                  │
│  ✓ Action items with owners                                      │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Severity Classification

LevelCriteriaResponse Time
SEV1Service down, all users affectedImmediate, all-hands
SEV2Major feature degraded, many users affectedWithin 15 min
SEV3Minor feature issue, some users affectedWithin 1 hour
SEV4Cosmetic or low-impact issueNext business day

Communication Guidance

Provide clear, factual updates at regular cadence. Include: what's happening, who's affected, what we're doing, when the next update is.

Output — Status Update

## Incident Update: [Title]
**Severity:** SEV[1-4] | **Status:** Investigating | Identified | Monitoring | Resolved
**Impact:** [Who/what is affected]
**Last Updated:** [Timestamp]

### Current Status
[What we know now]

### Actions Taken
- [Action 1]
- [Action 2]

### Next Steps
- [What's happening next and ETA]

### Timeline
| Time | Event |
|------|-------|
| [HH:MM] | [Event] |

Output — Postmortem

## Postmortem: [Incident Title]
**Date:** [Date] | **Duration:** [X hours] | **Severity:** SEV[X]
**Authors:** [Names] | **Status:** Draft

### Summary
[2-3 sentence plain-language summary]

### Impact
- [Users affected]
- [Duration of impact]
- [Business impact if quantifiable]

### Timeline
| Time (UTC) | Event |
|------------|-------|
| [HH:MM] | [Event] |

### Root Cause
[Detailed explanation of what caused the incident]

### 5 Whys
1. Why did [symptom]? → [Because...]
2. Why did [cause 1]? → [Because...]
3. Why did [cause 2]? → [Because...]
4. Why did [cause 3]? → [Because...]
5. Why did [cause 4]? → [Root cause]

### What Went Well
- [Things that worked]

### What Went Poorly
- [Things that didn't work]

### Action Items
| Action | Owner | Priority | Due Date |
|--------|-------|----------|----------|
| [Action] | [Person] | P0/P1/P2 | [Date] |

### Lessons Learned
[Key takeaways for the team]

If Connectors Available

If ~~monitoring is connected:

  • Pull alert details and metrics

  • Show graphs of affected metrics

If ~~incident management is connected:

  • Create or update incident in PagerDuty/Opsgenie

  • Page on-call responders

If ~~chat is connected:

  • Post status updates to incident channel

  • Create war room channel

Tips

  1. Start writing immediately — Don't wait for complete information. Update as you learn more.

  2. Keep updates factual — What we know, what we've done, what's next. No speculation.

  3. Postmortems are blameless — Focus on systems and processes, not individuals.

Files

LICENSE


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Requirements and compatibility

Written for: Claude Code, Claude apps

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Claude Code frontmatter

Security

No issues found by our static scan· No issues found

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Published by
Anthropic
Publisher
Anthropic (Official)
Source
anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins · engineering/skills/incident-response · commit e050c2e
Licence
Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
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Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download incident-response.zip