Windsurf Incident Runbook

Windsurf Incident Runbook

Overview

Incident response procedures for Windsurf-related issues: Cascade service outages, AI-generated code causing bugs, and team workflow disruptions.

Prerequisites

• Access to Windsurf dashboard and status page
• Git access to affected repositories
• Team communication channel (Slack, Teams)

Tool Use

• Use Read to inspect only the repository files and configuration needed for the request.
• Use Grep to locate relevant settings, rules, logs, or code without broad collection.
• Use only the command-scoped Bash entries declared in frontmatter, with non-destructive checks before mutations.

Instructions

1. Classify severity and assign an incident commander.
2. Preserve evidence, stop unsafe automation, and check the official service status.
3. Use the matching playbook below; prefer a reviewed revert through the protected delivery path.
4. Validate recovery with production health signals and record follow-up owners.

Severity Levels

Quick Triage Decision Tree

Is Windsurf service itself down?
├─ YES: Check https://status.windsurf.com
│   ├─ Status page shows incident → WAIT for Windsurf to resolve
│   │   Action: Switch to manual coding, notify team
│   └─ Status page green → Local issue
│       Action: Restart Windsurf, check internet, re-authenticate
│
└─ NO: Did AI-generated code cause a production issue?
    ├─ YES → P1 INCIDENT
    │   1. Revert the deployment immediately
    │   2. Identify the Cascade-generated commit(s)
    │   3. Fix manually or with targeted Cascade prompt
    │   4. Post-incident: update review policy
    │
    └─ NO: Is Cascade giving bad suggestions?
        ├─ YES → Check .devin/rules/project.md, start fresh Cascade session
        └─ NO → See windsurf-common-errors

P1 Playbook: AI Code Caused Production Bug

Step 1: Immediate Mitigation

set -euo pipefail
# Revert the deployment
git log --oneline -10  # Find the bad commit(s)

# On a dedicated incident branch created through the normal repository process:
git revert HEAD --no-edit  # Revert the confirmed bad commit
git status --short

# If multiple Cascade commits:
git revert --no-commit HEAD~3..HEAD  # Revert last 3 commits
git commit -m "revert: undo cascade changes causing [issue]"
# Push the incident branch and use the protected emergency PR/deploy lane.

Step 2: Identify Root Cause

# Find all Cascade-generated commits
git log --all --oneline --grep="cascade" --since="1 week ago"
git log --all --oneline --grep="\[cascade\]" --since="1 week ago"

# Compare before/after
git diff [last-good-commit]..HEAD -- src/

# Common root causes:
# 1. Cascade modified shared utility used by many modules
# 2. Cascade changed error handling (swallowed exceptions)
# 3. Cascade "optimized" code that had intentional behavior
# 4. Cascade introduced dependency on newer API version

Step 3: Fix and Validate

set -euo pipefail
git checkout -b fix/cascade-revert
# Make targeted fix
npm test
npm run typecheck
# Deploy to staging first

P2 Playbook: Windsurf Service Outage

Step 1: Confirm and Communicate

# Check Windsurf status
curl -sf https://status.windsurf.com || echo "Status page unreachable"

Step 2: Team Notification

Team notification template:

Windsurf AI features are currently unavailable.
Status: https://status.windsurf.com

Impact: Cascade and Supercomplete are not working.
Workaround: Continue coding manually. Windsurf still works as a
standard VS Code editor — only AI features are affected.

ETA: Monitoring status page for updates.

Step 3: Workarounds During Outage

1. Windsurf still works as VS Code (file editing, terminal, git)
2. Extensions still work (ESLint, Prettier, debugger)
3. Only Cascade, Supercomplete, and Command mode are down
4. Continue coding manually until service restores
5. Do NOT switch to a different editor mid-task (context loss)

P3 Playbook: Degraded AI Features

Symptoms and fixes:

Slow Cascade → Start fresh session, reduce workspace size
No Supercomplete → Check status bar widget, verify enabled
Wrong model → Check quota and policy state, then select an available model
MCP disconnected → Restart MCP servers (Command Palette)
Indexing stuck → Download diagnostics, then use the current indexing reset control

Post-Incident Actions

Evidence Collection

set -euo pipefail
# Collect relevant data
mkdir incident-$(date +%Y%m%d)
git log --since="1 day ago" --stat > incident-$(date +%Y%m%d)/commits.txt
cp .devin/rules/project.md incident-$(date +%Y%m%d)/ 2>/dev/null || true
# See windsurf-debug-bundle for full diagnostic collection

Postmortem Template

## Incident: [Title]
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Duration:** X hours Y minutes
**Severity:** P[1-4]

### Summary
[1-2 sentence description]

### Timeline
- HH:MM — [Event]
- HH:MM — [Event]

### Root Cause
[Was this an AI-generated code issue? Windsurf service issue? Config issue?]

### What Went Wrong
- [ ] AI-generated code not reviewed thoroughly
- [ ] Missing tests for AI-modified code
- [ ] .devin/rules/project.md didn't prevent the bad pattern
- [ ] Cascade modified shared code without constraint

### Action Items
- [ ] Update .devin/rules/project.md to prevent this pattern
- [ ] Add test coverage for affected module
- [ ] Update team Cascade usage policy
- [ ] Add CI gate for AI-modified code

Output

Maintain an incident record with severity, commander, timeline, affected revision, containment action, recovery evidence, customer impact, and follow-up owners. Never place credentials or sensitive source in the record, and never bypass protected-branch controls for speed.

Error Handling

Examples

Quick Health Check

curl -sf https://status.windsurf.com | head -5 || echo "WINDSURF STATUS UNREACHABLE"

Find Recent Cascade Commits

git log --all --oneline --since="7 days ago" | grep -i cascade

Resources

• Focused first-party references
• Windsurf Status Page
• Windsurf GitHub Issues

Related Skill

Continue with windsurf-data-handling when the incident involves sensitive context, retention questions, diagnostic evidence, or regulated-data exposure.