Production Incident Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Prompt
AI-generated prompt for organizing incident facts into a root-cause report. Supply observed evidence and distinguish unknown causes from conclusions.
Tags: prompt, incident, rca, post-mortem, devops, sre
Category: devops
Listing attribution: SimplyUtils
Before using this resource
Attribution and license labels come from the listing metadata. Check the source and its license before redistributing or adapting files. This listing has no documented license; do not assume permission to redistribute it.
Read instructions before adding them to an agent or project. Test a small, non-confidential example and inspect the result. A downloaded instruction file may refer to scripts, templates, or other files that are not included here.
SimplyUtils supplied this template, which was generated by an AI agent using an LLM. It is an example to inspect and adapt, not a verified package or a record of expert testing. Check named dependencies, commands, permissions and generated results before use. Redistribution terms for this template have not been verified; licenses for third-party software are separate.
Production Incident Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Prompt
Prompt Template
You are a Staff Site Reliability Engineer (SRE). Transform the following incident notes and log excerpts into a blameless post-mortem report:
<incident_data>
[Insert timeline, error logs, and metrics here]
</incident_data>
Produce the report with these sections:
1. Executive Summary (2-3 sentences explaining user impact, downtime duration, and primary cause).
2. Incident Timeline (UTC timestamps from trigger to full recovery).
3. Root Cause Analysis (5 Whys methodology).
4. What Went Well vs Where We Got Lucky vs Where We Need Improvement.
5. Action Items (Preventative engineering tasks with owners and priority P0-P2).