Write the postmortem from the record
Builds the timeline from the investigation record, the Datadog queries and the GitHub history, then drafts the cause, impact and follow-ups.
I want to do this: Write the postmortem for yesterday's incident: timeline, root cause, and the follow-ups. ## Setup (skip if Polylane is already set up) Read and follow https://polylane.com/auth.md for non-interactive signup and setup. Start by checking whether I am already signed in; reuse my account and workspace. If the CLI is missing, bootstrap it without starting the interactive wizard: curl -fsSL 'https://polylane.com/setup?ref=prompts' | bash -s -- --install-only Then follow the guide through email verification, workspace selection, source connections, and MCP authentication. Ask me for an email code or OAuth consent only when needed. Verify each step; report pending setup instead of claiming success from installation alone. ## How to work Over MCP: searchTools lists what this workspace exposes, with each tool's schema; call it first. runTool runs one tool, runCode chains several in one call and returns just the answer. search and execute cover the full Polylane REST API: threads, issues, investigations, autofixes, memories. From the terminal: the polylane CLI wraps the same API, with structured output and non-interactive flags everywhere. Reads always work. Write tools appear only if I have opted in, and every write is screened. ## Task: Write the postmortem from the record Steps: 1. Pull the issue and its investigation: detection time, verdicts, evidence 2. Rebuild the timeline from the recorded events, not recollection 3. State the root cause with its evidence, and what ended the incident 4. List the follow-ups the investigation surfaced, each tied to a finding 5. Deliver the postmortem draft, every claim linked to its source Ground every claim in data you actually pulled: the query, the log line, the change record. If the data is inconclusive, say so. Ask me before anything that writes.
The postmortem is homework nobody marks.
Reconstructing an incident a day later means scrolling Slack, re-running queries, and trusting memories that are already wrong. So the write-up slips, and the lessons slip with it.
- Rebuilding the timeline from Slack scrollback
- "When did it actually start?" answered three different ways
- Follow-ups that never leave the document
One prompt, this much work. Every step on your real data.
- 1 Pull the issue and its investigation: detection time, verdicts, evidence
- 2 Rebuild the timeline from the recorded events, not recollection
- 3 State the root cause with its evidence, and what ended the incident
- 4 List the follow-ups the investigation surfaced, each tied to a finding
- 5 Deliver the postmortem draft, every claim linked to its source
The write-up writes itself from the record
A postmortem grounded in what was actually recorded, done while the incident is still warm. The review meeting argues about actions, not timestamps.
What broke overnight? 
“Triage everything that fired overnight: what was real, what was noise, and what's still open?” Root cause 
“P99 on checkout-api doubled at 14:10. Find the cause and show the evidence.” First responder 
“We're seeing 500s on api.example.com. Start an investigation and post findings to #incidents.” What changed? 
“Did anything deploy or change config in the last two hours that could explain this latency?” War-room brief “Summarise the open incident for the exec channel: impact, cause so far, next steps.” Close the loop “The incident is resolved. Draft the permanent fix and link the evidence.” Which release? “Errors started around Tuesday. Which release introduced them?” Dedupe the pager “Group last month's pages into distinct issues. How many were the same thing twice?” Audit the alerts “Go through our alert rules: which ones fire the most, and which were ever real?”
“Triage everything that fired overnight: what was real, what was noise, and what's still open?” Root cause 
“P99 on checkout-api doubled at 14:10. Find the cause and show the evidence.” First responder “We're seeing 500s on api.example.com. Start an investigation and post findings to #incidents.” What changed? “Did anything deploy or change config in the last two hours that could explain this latency?” War-room brief “Summarise the open incident for the exec channel: impact, cause so far, next steps.” Close the loop “The incident is resolved. Draft the permanent fix and link the evidence.” Which release? “Errors started around Tuesday. Which release introduced them?” Dedupe the pager “Group last month's pages into distinct issues. How many were the same thing twice?” Audit the alerts “Go through our alert rules: which ones fire the most, and which were ever real?”