Dev
Postmortem Template Generator
An incident without a postmortem is just a story. An incident with a blameless review becomes preventive action. The difference is a structured document capturing what happened, why, and what owned, dated actions will prevent recurrence. One input drives the output: the Incident field names the event — checkout outage, authentication degradation, data pipeline failure. The generator returns a Markdown postmortem with seven sections: Summary, Impact, Timeline with detection and resolution markers, Root cause, What went well and poorly, Action items with owner and due date, and a blameless-framing reminder. Fill the Timeline while the incident is fresh. Separate the root cause from the trigger — fixing only the trigger leaves the system fragile. Every action item must have a named owner and a due date; a postmortem without tracked changes does not prevent recurrence.
How to use
- Choose your options above
- Click Generate
- Copy your result
Detailed instructions
- Name the incident.
- Click Generate to produce the postmortem template.
- Fill in the timeline, impact, and root cause.
- Assign each action item an owner and a due date.
Use Cases
- •Running a consistent incident postmortem
- •Capturing lessons from an outage while fresh
- •Turning an incident into preventive action items
- •Standardising blameless reviews across a team
- •Documenting a timeline and root cause clearly
Tips
- →Keep it blameless — focus on systems, not people.
- →Dig for the root cause, not just the trigger.
- →Give every action item an owner and a deadline.
- →Write it while the details are still fresh.
FAQ
what sections does the template include
Seven: Summary, Impact, Timeline (with detection and resolution markers), Root cause, What went well and poorly, Action items with owner and due date, and a closing reminder to keep the review blameless.
what does blameless mean in a postmortem
Blameless means the review focuses on the systems and processes that allowed the incident, not on who touched what. When individuals are not at risk, they share honestly, which surfaces the real causes and leads to genuine fixes.
why separate the trigger from the root cause
The trigger is the immediate event — a bad deploy. The root cause is the deeper condition that let it cause harm — no staging check, no rollback path. Fixing only the trigger leaves the system vulnerable to the next similar event.
what makes action items effective
Each must have a named owner and a due date. A postmortem that produces a narrative but no tracked, accountable actions does not prevent the next incident. Follow up on items in the next retrospective to ensure completion.
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