# Postmortem format

Use after an incident to align on impact, timeline, causes, and actions without blame.

## Great instance

- Separates customer impact from internal noise.
- Uses a timeline that reviewers can correct at event-level precision.
- Names contributing causes, not human scapegoats.
- Turns actions into owned, individually resolvable list items.

## Cut

- Blame, hero stories, and speculation not tied to evidence.
- Actions without owner and due date.
- Metrics that do not describe impact or recovery.

## Skeleton

```markdown
# Postmortem: <incident>

## Impact
<users, duration, severity, data affected>

## Timeline
| Time | Event | Evidence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| <time> | <event> | <link or source> |

## Root cause
<primary cause and contributing factors>

## Actions
- [ ] <owner> by <date>: <specific prevention or detection change>
```

## Section prompts

- Use absolute times with timezone.
- Keep timeline rows factual.
- Write causes as system conditions.
- Make every action small enough to resolve or reject.

## Renderer moves

Catalog: ../building-artifacts.md#what-each-file-type-becomes - md doc reader sections; table timeline; anchors on action list items.