debrief

Post-incident debrief

Produce a structured, blameless debrief document after an incident, failed release, or significant bug. Capture what happened, why, and what to change — while the context is still fresh.

Use this when a production incident, failed release, flaky deploy, or significant bug warrants more than just a fix — when the team needs to understand why it happened and prevent recurrence.

Incident Context

<incident_context>$ARGUMENTS</incident_context>

If the incident context above is empty, ask the user: "What incident would you like to debrief? Describe what happened, link to relevant PRs/commits, or paste error logs."

DO NOT proceed until you have a description from the user.

Execution Flow

1. Gather initial information

Use the AskUserQuestion tool to fill in gaps one question at a time. Adapt based on what the user already provided — skip questions whose answers are already clear from the incident context.

Key questions to resolve:

Topic	Example Questions
What happened	What was the user-visible impact? What broke?
When	When did it start? When was it detected? When was it resolved?
Where	What platform, environment, or service? (e.g., prod vs staging, iOS vs Android, specific API)
Severity	How many users/systems were affected? Was data lost?
Detection	How was it discovered? Alert, user report, or manual observation?
Resolution	What was the fix? Is it deployed? Is it a temporary workaround?
References	Relevant PRs, commits, CI runs, error logs, or monitoring links?

Exit condition: Continue until you have enough context to reconstruct a timeline, OR the user says "that's all I have" or "proceed."

The skill must work with partial information. Not every debrief has full CI logs or a complete timeline. Note gaps explicitly in the document rather than blocking on them.

2. Gather evidence from the codebase

Based on the incident context, automatically collect evidence. Run these in parallel where possible:

Run these in parallel:

• Git history: git log on affected files (last 2 weeks or user-specified range), git log --all --oneline for related commits, gh pr view for referenced PRs
• CI/CD evidence: gh run list for recent failures, gh run view <id> for referenced runs. Skip if no CI context — do not block on missing data.
• Affected file analysis: Check test coverage (Glob for test files), recent change frequency (git log --oneline <file>). Note files lacking tests or with high churn.

3. Analyze root cause

Synthesize the evidence to identify the root cause (specific change, gap, or condition — trace to commits or code paths) and contributing factors (missing tests, no monitoring, unclear ownership, insufficient review).

Blameless framing: Focus on systems and processes, not individuals. Ask "what made this possible?" not "who caused this?"

4. Draft action items

Generate concrete, assignable follow-ups. Each must be specific (not "improve testing"), linked to code where possible, and categorized:

Type	Purpose	Examples
Prevent	Would have stopped this incident	Add validation, add test
Detect	Would have caught it sooner	Add monitoring, add CI check
Respond	Would have made recovery faster	Add runbook, add feature flag

Action items are recorded in the document only — they become separate tickets.

5. Set up workspace

Before writing the debrief file, ensure the session is on a feature branch:

• Call @create-branch to check and optionally create a working branch or worktree.

6. Write the debrief document

Write the document to docs/debriefs/YYYY-MM-DD-<kebab-case-topic>-debrief.md.

Ensure docs/debriefs/ directory exists before writing.

Document structure:

Use the debrief template as the document structure. Adapt it to fit the available information — omit sections with no relevant data rather than filling them with "N/A." Add sections if the incident warrants it (e.g., a "Customer Communication" section for user-facing incidents).

7. Handoff

Use the AskUserQuestion tool to present next steps:

Question: "Debrief complete! What would you like to do next?"

Options:

1. Review and refine: improve the document using structured review
2. Create action item tickets: draft GitHub issues from the action items (not implemented yet — note this)
3. Done: debrief complete

If the user selects "Review and refine" → apply the @refine-approach skill to the document. When refinement is complete, present these options again (without the refine option).

Output Summary

When complete, display:

Debrief complete!

Document: docs/debriefs/YYYY-MM-DD-<kebab-case-topic>-debrief.md

Severity: <severity>
Root cause: [one-line summary]
Action items: <N> prevent, <N> detect, <N> respond

Key Principles

• Blameless — Focus on systems and processes, never individuals
• Evidence-based — Link findings to commits, PRs, code paths, and logs
• Actionable — Every action item is specific and assignable
• Honest about gaps — Mark unknowns explicitly rather than guessing
• Tech-agnostic — No language or framework assumptions in the skill itself

Important

DO NOT make code changes. This skill produces a document only. Action items become separate tickets.