--- name: on-call-handoff-patterns description: Master on-call shift handoffs with context transfer, escalation procedures, and documentation. Use when transitioning on-call responsibilities, documenting shift summaries, or improving on-call processes. --- # On-Call Handoff Patterns Effective patterns for on-call shift transitions, ensuring continuity, context transfer, and reliable incident response across shifts. ## When to Use This Skill - Transitioning on-call responsibilities - Writing shift handoff summaries - Documenting ongoing investigations - Establishing on-call rotation procedures - Improving handoff quality - Onboarding new on-call engineers ## Core Concepts ### 1. Handoff Components | Component | Purpose | | -------------------------- | ----------------------- | | **Active Incidents** | What's currently broken | | **Ongoing Investigations** | Issues being debugged | | **Recent Changes** | Deployments, configs | | **Known Issues** | Workarounds in place | | **Upcoming Events** | Maintenance, releases | ### 2. Handoff Timing ``` Recommended: 30 min overlap between shifts Outgoing: ├── 15 min: Write handoff document └── 15 min: Sync call with incoming Incoming: ├── 15 min: Review handoff document ├── 15 min: Sync call with outgoing └── 5 min: Verify alerting setup ``` ## Templates ### Template 1: Shift Handoff Document ````markdown # On-Call Handoff: Platform Team **Outgoing**: @alice (2024-01-15 to 2024-01-22) **Incoming**: @bob (2024-01-22 to 2024-01-29) **Handoff Time**: 2024-01-22 09:00 UTC --- ## 🔴 Active Incidents ### None currently active No active incidents at handoff time. --- ## 🟡 Ongoing Investigations ### 1. Intermittent API Timeouts (ENG-1234) **Status**: Investigating **Started**: 2024-01-20 **Impact**: ~0.1% of requests timing out **Context**: - Timeouts correlate with database backup window (02:00-03:00 UTC) - Suspect backup process causing lock contention - Added extra logging in PR #567 (deployed 01/21) **Next Steps**: - [ ] Review new logs after tonight's backup - [ ] Consider moving backup window if confirmed **Resources**: - Dashboard: [API Latency](https://grafana/d/api-latency) - Thread: #platform-eng (01/20, 14:32) --- ### 2. Memory Growth in Auth Service (ENG-1235) **Status**: Monitoring **Started**: 2024-01-18 **Impact**: None yet (proactive) **Context**: - Memory usage growing ~5% per day - No memory leak found in profiling - Suspect connection pool not releasing properly **Next Steps**: - [ ] Review heap dump from 01/21 - [ ] Consider restart if usage > 80% **Resources**: - Dashboard: [Auth Service Memory](https://grafana/d/auth-memory) - Analysis doc: [Memory Investigation](https://docs/eng-1235) --- ## 🟢 Resolved This Shift ### Payment Service Outage (2024-01-19) - **Duration**: 23 minutes - **Root Cause**: Database connection exhaustion - **Resolution**: Rolled back v2.3.4, increased pool size - **Postmortem**: [POSTMORTEM-89](https://docs/postmortem-89) - **Follow-up tickets**: ENG-1230, ENG-1231 --- ## 📋 Recent Changes ### Deployments | Service | Version | Time | Notes | | ------------ | ------- | ----------- | -------------------------- | | api-gateway | v3.2.1 | 01/21 14:00 | Bug fix for header parsing | | user-service | v2.8.0 | 01/20 10:00 | New profile features | | auth-service | v4.1.2 | 01/19 16:00 | Security patch | ### Configuration Changes - 01/21: Increased API rate limit from 1000 to 1500 RPS - 01/20: Updated database connection pool max from 50 to 75 ### Infrastructure - 01/20: Added 2 nodes to Kubernetes cluster - 01/19: Upgraded Redis from 6.2 to 7.0 --- ## ⚠️ Known Issues & Workarounds ### 1. Slow Dashboard Loading **Issue**: Grafana dashboards slow on Monday mornings **Workaround**: Wait 5 min after 08:00 UTC for cache warm-up **Ticket**: OPS-456 (P3) ### 2. Flaky Integration Test **Issue**: `test_payment_flow` fails intermittently in CI **Workaround**: Re-run failed job (usually passes on retry) **Ticket**: ENG-1200 (P2) --- ## 📅 Upcoming Events | Date | Event | Impact | Contact | | ----------- | -------------------- | ------------------- | ------------- | | 01/23 02:00 | Database maintenance | 5 min read-only | @dba-team | | 01/24 14:00 | Major release v5.0 | Monitor closely | @release-team | | 01/25 | Marketing campaign | 2x traffic expected | @platform | --- ## 📞 Escalation Reminders | Issue Type | First Escalation | Second Escalation | | --------------- | -------------------- | ----------------- | | Payment issues | @payments-oncall | @payments-manager | | Auth issues | @auth-oncall | @security-team | | Database issues | @dba-team | @infra-manager | | Unknown/severe | @engineering-manager | @vp-engineering | --- ## 🔧 Quick Reference ### Common Commands ```bash # Check service health kubectl get pods -A | grep -v Running # Recent deployments kubectl get events --sort-by='.lastTimestamp' | tail -20 # Database connections psql -c "SELECT count(*) FROM pg_stat_activity;" # Clear cache (emergency only) redis-cli FLUSHDB ``` ```` ### Important Links - [Runbooks](https://wiki/runbooks) - [Service Catalog](https://wiki/services) - [Incident Slack](https://slack.com/incidents) - [PagerDuty](https://pagerduty.com/schedules) --- ## Handoff Checklist ### Outgoing Engineer - [x] Document active incidents - [x] Document ongoing investigations - [x] List recent changes - [x] Note known issues - [x] Add upcoming events - [x] Sync with incoming engineer ### Incoming Engineer - [ ] Read this document - [ ] Join sync call - [ ] Verify PagerDuty is routing to you - [ ] Verify Slack notifications working - [ ] Check VPN/access working - [ ] Review critical dashboards ```` ### Template 2: Quick Handoff (Async) ```markdown # Quick Handoff: @alice → @bob ## TL;DR - No active incidents - 1 investigation ongoing (API timeouts, see ENG-1234) - Major release tomorrow (01/24) - be ready for issues ## Watch List 1. API latency around 02:00-03:00 UTC (backup window) 2. Auth service memory (restart if > 80%) ## Recent - Deployed api-gateway v3.2.1 yesterday (stable) - Increased rate limits to 1500 RPS ## Coming Up - 01/23 02:00 - DB maintenance (5 min read-only) - 01/24 14:00 - v5.0 release ## Questions? I'll be available on Slack until 17:00 today. ```` ### Template 3: Incident Handoff (Mid-Incident) ```markdown # INCIDENT HANDOFF: Payment Service Degradation **Incident Start**: 2024-01-22 08:15 UTC **Current Status**: Mitigating **Severity**: SEV2 --- ## Current State - Error rate: 15% (down from 40%) - Mitigation in progress: scaling up pods - ETA to resolution: ~30 min ## What We Know 1. Root cause: Memory pressure on payment-service pods 2. Triggered by: Unusual traffic spike (3x normal) 3. Contributing: Inefficient query in checkout flow ## What We've Done - Scaled payment-service from 5 → 15 pods - Enabled rate limiting on checkout endpoint - Disabled non-critical features ## What Needs to Happen 1. Monitor error rate - should reach <1% in ~15 min 2. If not improving, escalate to @payments-manager 3. Once stable, begin root cause investigation ## Key People - Incident Commander: @alice (handing off) - Comms Lead: @charlie - Technical Lead: @bob (incoming) ## Communication - Status page: Updated at 08:45 - Customer support: Notified - Exec team: Aware