How do I install the Postmortem skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add neurofoo/postmortem in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Postmortem safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. Independent scanners report: SkillSpector: PASS, Skill Scanner: PASS. Capability flags: docs only. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Postmortem?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Postmortem free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Postmortem?

neurofoo (@neurofoo) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Postmortem by neurofoo — Agent Skill

Name: Postmortem
Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Author: neurofoo

File contents

Blameless Post-Mortem

Conduct a thorough, blameless analysis of an incident to understand what happened and prevent recurrence.

Instructions

Work through each section systematically. Focus on systems and processes, not individuals. The goal is learning, not blame.

Output Format

Executive Summary

Incident: [One-line description] Date/Time: [When it occurred] Duration: [How long] Severity: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]

Summary [2-3 sentence overview: what happened, impact, resolution]

Timeline

All times in [timezone].

Time	Event	Actor
HH:MM	[What happened]	[Who/what did it]
HH:MM	[Detection]	[How it was noticed]
HH:MM	[Response action]	[Who responded]
HH:MM	[Resolution]	[What fixed it]

Key Moments

Trigger: [What initiated the incident]
Detection: [How/when we knew something was wrong]
Mitigation: [When bleeding was stopped]
Resolution: [When fully resolved]

Impact

Customer Impact

Users affected: [number]
Duration of impact: [time]
Symptoms experienced: [what users saw]

Business Impact

Revenue impact: [if applicable]
SLA/SLO breach: [yes/no, details]

Root Cause Analysis

Root Cause [The fundamental reason this happened—not the trigger, but why the trigger caused an incident]

Trigger [The immediate cause—what set things in motion]

Contributing Factors

Factor	How It Contributed
[factor]	[explanation]

Why Wasn't This Caught?

Why didn't tests catch it?
Why didn't monitoring alert earlier?

What Went Well

What Worked	Why It Helped
[thing]	[explanation]

What Went Poorly

What Failed	Impact
[thing]	[impact]

Action Items

Immediate (This week)

Action	Owner	Due
[action]	[owner]	[date]

Short-term (This month)

Action	Owner	Due
[action]	[owner]	[date]

Lessons Learned

[lesson]
[lesson]
[lesson]

Guidelines

Blameless: "The deploy script didn't validate" not "Alice deployed without checking"
Thorough timeline: Include everything, even embarrassing delays
Specific actions: "Add memory alerting" not "Improve monitoring"
Assigned owners: Unowned actions don't happen

$ARGUMENTS

---name: postmortemdescription: Blameless post-mortem incident analysis with timeline, root cause, and action items. Use after outages, security incidents, project failures, or any event you want to prevent recurring.--- # Blameless Post-Mortem Conduct a thorough, blameless analysis of an incident to understand what happened and prevent recurrence. ## Instructions Work through each section systematically. Focus on systems and processes, not individuals. The goal is learning, not blame. ### Output Format ## Executive Summary **Incident**: [One-line description] **Date/Time**: [When it occurred] **Duration**: [How long] **Severity**: [Critical/High/Medium/Low] **Summary** [2-3 sentence overview: what happened, impact, resolution] --- ## Timeline All times in [timezone]. | Time | Event | Actor | |------|-------|-------| | HH:MM | [What happened] | [Who/what did it] | | HH:MM | [Detection] | [How it was noticed] | | HH:MM | [Response action] | [Who responded] | | HH:MM | [Resolution] | [What fixed it] | **Key Moments** - **Trigger**: [What initiated the incident] - **Detection**: [How/when we knew something was wrong] - **Mitigation**: [When bleeding was stopped] - **Resolution**: [When fully resolved] --- ## Impact **Customer Impact** - Users affected: [number] - Duration of impact: [time] - Symptoms experienced: [what users saw] **Business Impact** - Revenue impact: [if applicable] - SLA/SLO breach: [yes/no, details] --- ## Root Cause Analysis **Root Cause** [The fundamental reason this happened—not the trigger, but why the trigger caused an incident] **Trigger** [The immediate cause—what set things in motion] **Contributing Factors** | Factor | How It Contributed | |--------|-------------------| | [factor] | [explanation] | **Why Wasn't This Caught?** - Why didn't tests catch it? - Why didn't monitoring alert earlier? --- ## What Went Well | What Worked | Why It Helped | |-------------|---------------| | [thing] | [explanation] | --- ## What Went Poorly | What Failed | Impact | |-------------|--------| | [thing] | [impact] | --- ## Action Items **Immediate** (This week) | Action | Owner | Due | |--------|-------|-----| | [action] | [owner] | [date] | **Short-term** (This month) | Action | Owner | Due | |--------|-------|-----| | [action] | [owner] | [date] | --- ## Lessons Learned 1. [lesson] 2. [lesson] 3. [lesson] --- ## Guidelines - **Blameless**: "The deploy script didn't validate" not "Alice deployed without checking" - **Thorough timeline**: Include everything, even embarrassing delays - **Specific actions**: "Add memory alerting" not "Improve monitoring" - **Assigned owners**: Unowned actions don't happen $ARGUMENTS

Frequently asked questions

Postmortem