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Recipe

On-call handoff summary

A structured template for engineers handing off on-call responsibilities between shifts.

Why this matters

A bad handoff creates blind spots. The incoming engineer wastes time reconstructing context instead of responding. This recipe ensures every shift transition carries forward the full picture.

The template

## Active incidents

- [ ] INC-____ (severity, age, owner)

- [ ] INC-____

## Warnings / near-misses

- [ ] Describe — no alert fired yet

## Deployments in flight

- [ ] PR #____ (service, risk, rollback plan)

## Known fragile areas

- [ ] Rate-limit thresholds, DB replicas, etc.

## Escalation path

- [ ] Who to wake up and when

How to use it

  1. Outgoing engineer fills every section 30 minutes before shift end.
  2. Incoming engineer reads it aloud during the 10-minute overlap call.
  3. Both engineers confirm nothing is left in a “I’ll handle it later” state.
  4. Post the summary in the team channel so leadership has visibility.

Anti-patterns

  • “Nothing happened, all quiet.” — Even quiet shifts have context.
  • Verbal-only handoff with no written artifact.
  • Deferring incident follow-ups to the next shift without a clear owner.

Pro tip: Keep a running handoff draft throughout your shift. Don’t try to reconstruct six hours from memory at the last minute.