postmortem-writing
Write effective blameless postmortems with root cause analysis, timelines, and action items. Use when conducting incident reviews, writing postmortem documents, or improving incident response processes.
Profile →npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill postmortem-writing --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Postmortem Writing Comprehensive guide to writing effective, blameless postmortems that drive organizational learning and prevent incident recurrence. ## When to Use This Skill - Conducting post-incident reviews - Writing postmortem documents - Facilitating blameless postmortem meetings - Identifying root causes and contributing factors - Creating actionable follow-up items - Building organizational learning culture ## Core Concepts ### 1. Blameless Culture | Blame-Focused | Blameless | | ------------------------ | --------------------------------- | | "Who caused this?" | "What conditions allowed this?" | | "Someone made a mistake" | "The system allowed this mistake" | | Punish individuals | Improve systems | | Hide information | Share learnings | | Fear of speaking up | Psychological safety | ### 2. Postmortem Triggers - SEV1 or SEV2 incidents - Customer-facing outages > 15 minutes - Data loss or security incidents - Near-misses that could have been severe - Novel failure modes - Incidents requiring unusual intervention ## Quick Start ### Postmortem Timeline ``` Day 0: Incident occurs Day 1-2: Draft postmortem document Day 3-5: Postmortem meeting Day 5-7: Finalize document, cre
- When to Use This Skill
- Core Concepts
- 1. Blameless Culture
- 2. Postmortem Triggers
- Quick Start
- Postmortem Timeline
- Templates and detailed worked examples
- References
- Problem Statement
- Analysis
- Why #1: Why did the service fail?
- Why #2: Why were database connections exhausted?
- Why #3: Why did the code bypass the connection pool?
- Why #4: Why wasn't this caught in code review?
What does the postmortem-writing skill do?
Write effective blameless postmortems with root cause analysis, timelines, and action items. Use when conducting incident reviews, writing postmortem documents, or improving incident response processes.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill postmortem-writing --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From wshobson/agents, a repository with 38,479 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.