Run a blameless post-mortem on an incident
Bad post-mortems blame people. Good ones produce systemic fixes. This prompt enforces the structure that produces useful artifacts.
Produce a blameless post-mortem for this incident.
What happened (raw timeline, slack logs, summaries):
{{INCIDENT_RAW}}
Structure:
1. SUMMARY — one paragraph, written for an exec.
2. TIMELINE — bullet points with timestamps, no narrative interpretation.
3. IMPACT — users affected, revenue, SLA breach, customer-facing comms sent.
4. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS — at least 3, classified as: human factor, tooling, process, system design. Never label one as 'root cause'; failures are multi-causal.
5. DETECTION — how we found out, how long it took, what would have helped.
6. ACTION ITEMS — each with: owner, due date, type (prevent / detect-faster / mitigate-faster).
7. WHAT WENT WELL — 2-3 things, to reinforce.
No passive voice when assigning ownership. No "someone should". {{INCIDENT_RAW}}
How to use this prompt
- Copy the prompt above (Copy button on the top-right).
- Replace each
{{VAR}}with your own value. Variables:{{INCIDENT_RAW}}. - Paste it into one of the recommended tools below.
- Iterate: tighten constraints in the prompt if the output is generic.
Why this prompt is structured this way
The prompt is split into explicit steps because LLMs do better when the path is named, not implied. Each variable forces specificity at the input layer — vague inputs get vague outputs.
Pair this prompt with a tool
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Gumroad
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