Incident Handoff Checklist

Use this Skill when an agent needs to leave behind a clear operational state for another person or another agent.

When to use this Skill

Reach for this checklist when:

• an incident is still active and ownership may change
• the current investigation window is ending
• a status update needs to summarize what is known, what is blocked, and what should happen next
• the agent has partial findings but should not keep exploring without human review

Do not use this Skill for a polished incident retrospective. It is for live operational continuity.

Required output

Every handoff should make these seven points explicit:

1. Current severity and customer impact.
2. Current owner.
3. What has already been checked.
4. What evidence matters most right now.
5. What is still unknown.
6. The single highest-priority next step.
7. Whether escalation, rollback, or stakeholder communication is pending.

Writing rules

• Prefer short bullets over long paragraphs.
• Do not bury the current risk.
• If a decision is blocked by missing evidence, say exactly what evidence is missing.
• If the agent changed its confidence level during the investigation, say why.
• If there is no clear owner, say that explicitly instead of implying one.

Suggested structure

Use the outline in references/handoff-template.md as the default shape.

Failure cases to avoid

• Do not end with "monitoring" unless monitoring has a concrete owner and trigger.
• Do not say "everything looks fine" if any customer impact is still unknown.
• Do not mark an item as complete if it was only proposed.
• Do not hide unresolved questions inside a generic notes section.