PlaybookPrompts

Run a blameless post-mortem on an incident

Business Strategy post-mortemincidents

Bad post-mortems blame people. Good ones produce systemic fixes. This prompt enforces the structure that produces useful artifacts.

Prompt
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".
Variables to fill in
  • {{INCIDENT_RAW}}

How to use this prompt

  1. Copy the prompt above (Copy button on the top-right).
  2. Replace each {{VAR}} with your own value. Variables: {{INCIDENT_RAW}}.
  3. Paste it into one of the recommended tools below.
  4. 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.

Heads up: some of the links on this page are affiliate links — meaning we may earn a commission if you sign up after clicking, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend tools we'd put on our own stack. You can see our full affiliate disclosure here.

Pair this prompt with a tool

The PlaybookPrompts weekly

One short email per week. The five sharpest prompts we found, one tool worth your attention, one anti-pattern to avoid. Unsubscribe in one click.

Newsletter signup is not configured. Set PUBLIC_NEWSLETTER_USERNAME in the build env.