4.5 KiB
4.5 KiB
Communication Templates
Copy-paste templates for incident communications across all channels and severity levels.
Internal Communications
SEV1 Incident Start
🚨 SEV1 INCIDENT DECLARED 🚨
Incident ID: INC-YYYY-MM-DD-XXX
Impact: [Brief description - e.g., "100% outage, database down"]
Affected Services: [List services]
Customer Impact: [All users / X% of users / Specific feature unavailable]
Roles:
- Incident Commander: @[name]
- Technical Lead: @[name]
- Communications Lead: @[name]
War Room:
- Slack: #incident-XXX
- Zoom: [link]
Status: Investigating
Next Update: [Time] (15 minutes or on status change)
Runbook: [Link if available]
SEV2 Incident Start
⚠️ SEV2 INCIDENT
Incident ID: INC-YYYY-MM-DD-XXX
Impact: [Brief description - e.g., "API degraded, 30% users affected"]
Symptoms: [What users are experiencing]
IC: @[name]
Status: Investigating [suspected cause]
Next Update: 30 minutes
Incident Update
📊 UPDATE #[N] (T+[X] minutes)
Root Cause: [What we found OR "Still investigating"]
Mitigation: [What we're doing]
Impact: [Current status - improving/stable/worsening]
ETA: [Expected resolution time OR "Unknown"]
Next Update: [Time]
Incident Resolved
🎉 INCIDENT RESOLVED (T+[X] minutes/hours)
Final Status: All services operational
Root Cause: [Brief summary]
Fix Applied: [What was done]
Monitoring: Ongoing for [duration]
Postmortem: Scheduled for [date/time]
Timeline: [Link to detailed timeline]
External Communications
Status Page - Investigating
🔴 INVESTIGATING - [Brief Title]
We are investigating reports of [issue description].
Our team is actively working to identify the cause.
Affected: [Service names]
Started: [HH:MM UTC]
Next Update: [HH:MM UTC]
Status Page - Identified
🟡 IDENTIFIED - [Issue Title]
We have identified the issue as [brief cause].
Our team is implementing a fix.
Affected: [Service names]
Started: [HH:MM UTC]
Identified: [HH:MM UTC]
Est. Resolution: [HH:MM UTC]
Status Page - Monitoring
🟢 MONITORING - [Issue Title] Resolved
The issue has been resolved and services are operating normally.
We are monitoring to ensure stability.
Started: [HH:MM UTC]
Resolved: [HH:MM UTC]
Duration: [X] minutes
Customer Email - SEV1 Postmortem
Subject: Service Disruption - [Date] Postmortem
Dear [Product Name] Customers,
On [Date] at [Time UTC], we experienced a service disruption that affected [all users / X% of users] for approximately [duration].
What Happened:
[2-3 sentence summary of the incident]
Impact:
- Duration: [X] minutes
- Affected Users: [percentage or description]
- Services Impacted: [list]
Root Cause:
[1-2 sentence explanation of root cause]
Resolution:
[1-2 sentences on how we fixed it]
Prevention:
We have implemented the following measures to prevent recurrence:
1. [Measure 1]
2. [Measure 2]
3. [Measure 3]
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
[Team Name]
[Company Name]
Executive Briefings
Initial Notification (SEV1 only)
Subject: SEV1 Incident - [Brief Title]
Summary:
- Incident ID: INC-YYYY-MM-DD-XXX
- Started: [HH:MM UTC]
- Impact: [All users affected / X% affected / revenue stopped]
- Status: [Investigating / Mitigation in progress]
Current Situation:
[2-3 sentences explaining what's happening]
Response:
- IC: [Name]
- Team: [X] engineers actively working
- ETA: [Time if known, "Unknown" if not]
Business Impact:
- Revenue: [Estimated $ per hour OR "Minimal"]
- Customers: [Number affected]
- SLA: [Yes/No breach, details]
Next Update: [Time]
Resolution Summary (Executive)
Subject: SEV1 Resolved - [Brief Title]
Incident INC-YYYY-MM-DD-XXX has been resolved after [duration].
Timeline:
- Started: [HH:MM UTC]
- Identified: [HH:MM UTC]
- Resolved: [HH:MM UTC]
- Total Duration: [X] minutes
Impact:
- Customers Affected: [Number / percentage]
- Revenue Loss: [$X estimated]
- SLA Breach: [Yes/No]
Root Cause:
[1-2 sentences]
Resolution:
[1-2 sentences on fix]
Prevention:
[2-3 key action items with owners and dates]
Postmortem: Scheduled for [date/time]
[IC Name]
Related Documentation
- Severity Matrix: incident-severity-matrix.md - When to use each template
- Examples: Examples Index - Real communications from incidents
- Templates: Templates Index - Full incident timeline and postmortem templates
Return to reference index