cloudthinker-ai Error Budget Review
Phase 1: Budget Status Assessment
Gather current error budget data for the review window.
Record SLO and error budget status:
- Current SLO target: ___%
- Error budget total (minutes of allowed downtime): ___
- Error budget consumed: ___%
- Error budget remaining: ___%
- Days remaining in the window: ___
Burn rate analysis:
- Current burn rate (budget consumed per day): ___
- Projected budget at end of window: ___%
- Is the current burn rate sustainable? Y/N
Phase 2: Incident and Degradation Review
Catalog events that consumed error budget.
| Date | Event Description | Duration (min) | Budget Consumed (%) | Root Cause Category | Preventable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Root Cause Categories: Infrastructure, Deployment, Dependency, Configuration, Capacity, Unknown
Phase 3: Budget Burn Decision Matrix
| Budget Status | Action |
|---|---|
| >50% remaining | Continue normal feature velocity. No restrictions. |
| 25-50% remaining | Increase review rigor. Require rollback plans for all deployments. |
| 10-25% remaining | Reduce deployment frequency. Prioritize reliability work. |
| <10% remaining | Feature freeze. All engineering effort on reliability. |
| Exhausted | Full freeze. Escalate to leadership. Conduct postmortem on budget exhaustion. |
Phase 4: Trend Analysis
- Compare budget consumption to previous 3 review windows
- Identify recurring root cause categories
- Assess whether SLO targets are appropriately set
- Evaluate if measurement methodology is accurate
Phase 5: Recommendations
- For each top budget consumer:
- Define preventive action
- Assign owner
- Set target completion date
- Define expected budget impact
Counter-Rationalizations
| Shortcut | Counter | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "We can skip some steps for this case" | Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them | Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate |
| "The user seems to already know what to do" | Complete all workflow phases with the user | The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses |
| "This is a minor case, full process is overkill" | Scale the process down, don't turn it off | Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears |
| "I'll fill in the details later" | Complete each section before moving on | Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate |
| "The template output isn't necessary" | Always produce the structured output format | Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams |
Output Format
Summary
- SLO: ___% over ___ day window
- Error budget status: ___% consumed / ___% remaining
- Burn rate assessment: Sustainable / At Risk / Critical
- Top budget consumer: ___ (___% of total consumption)
Action Items
- Update SLO documentation if targets are being adjusted
- File reliability improvement tickets for top 3 budget consumers
- Communicate budget status to stakeholders
- Schedule follow-up review in ___ days