Site Reliability Engineering
A comprehensive methodology for designing, operating, and improving reliable production systems. Rooted in Google SRE principles and extended with modern practices for incident command, observability engineering, error budget governance, and operational excellence.
When to Load This Skill
| Trigger |
What It Means |
| "Design reliability into this system" |
SLO/SLI framework, error budget policy, resilience architecture |
| "Run an incident postmortem" |
Blameless postmortem with timeline, 5 Whys, action tracking |
| "Improve our on-call" |
Rotation design, alert tuning, toil reduction, escalation policy |
| "Build observability" |
The Four Golden Signals, dashboard design, alert rule patterns |
| "Do a reliability review" |
Architecture review against SRE principles, risk assessment |
| "I need an incident commander" |
Incident command framework, role cards, communication templates |
| "Automate this operational task" |
Toil assessment, automation decision tree, runbook pattern |
When not to use
Use release-engineering to plan releases, compose promotion and rollback gates, or coordinate a release train. Use systematic-debugging to find the cause of a specific failure.
Reference Files
| Topic |
File |
When to Load |
| SRE Book Chapter Summaries |
references/sre-book-chapters.md |
Design engagement, first principles review |
| SLO/SLI Framework |
references/slo-sli-framework.md |
Defining reliability targets |
| Error Budget Governance |
references/error-budget-governance.md |
Policy design, burn rate alerts |
| Incident Command System |
references/incident-command-system.md |
During/after incident, training |
| Blameless Postmortems |
references/postmortem-culture.md |
After incident, process design |
| Monitoring & Alerting |
references/monitoring-alerting.md |
Observability design, alert rules |
| On-Call Best Practices |
references/oncall-best-practices.md |
Rotation design, team sizing |
| Toil Elimination |
references/toil-elimination.md |
Automation prioritization, ops review |
| Release Engineering |
release-engineering |
Release planning, promotion, progressive delivery, and rollback design; use the local reference only for SRE-specific integration context |
| Effective Troubleshooting |
references/troubleshooting.md |
Debugging methodology |
| Senior SRE Role Blueprint |
references/senior-sre-blueprint.md |
Role definition, KPI framework |
| SRE Communication Guide |
references/sre-communication-guide.md |
Stakeholder updates, incident communication |
| Guiding Principles |
references/guiding-principles.md |
First principles, philosophy |
| Product-Focused Reliability |
references/product-focused-reliability.md |
Product-centric SRE, CUJ-based SLOs, JTBD model |
| Twenty Years of Lessons |
references/twenty-years-lessons.md |
Incident-derived tactical lessons, Prodverbs |
| SRE Ecosystem Guide |
references/sre-ecosystem-guide.md |
Curated guide to all SRE resources (Workbook, Secure Systems, Classroom, Prodcast, STPA, Video Gallery, Mobaa, fundamentals, AI ops) |
Templates
| Template |
File |
Purpose |
| Incident Commander Checklist |
templates/incident-command-checklist.md |
Step-by-step IC response |
| Postmortem Template |
templates/postmortem-template.md |
Blameless postmortem document |
| Runbook Template |
templates/runbook-template.md |
Operational runbook standard |
| SLO Declaration Template |
templates/slo-declaration-template.md |
Service-level objective specification |
| Error Budget Policy |
templates/error-budget-policy.md |
Team-level error budget governance |
| On-Call Rotation Template |
templates/oncall-rotation.md |
Rotation schedule and escalation |
| Service Review Checklist |
templates/service-review-checklist.md |
Pre-launch reliability review |
| Incident Communication Template |
templates/incident-communication.md |
Status updates during incidents |
Scripts
| Script |
Purpose |
scripts/slo-burn-rate.py |
Calculate error budget burn rate from SLI data |
scripts/postmortem-summary.py |
Generate a postmortem summary from structured data |
Portability
This skill is intentionally host-neutral. Use your agent's normal mechanisms to load the references, templates, and scripts listed here. Do not assume a particular profile system, task orchestrator, memory service, or response-handoff format.
1---2name: site-reliability-engineering3description: Design, operate, and improve reliable production systems with SLOs, incident command, observability, error budgets, and operational practices.4license: MIT5---6
7
8# Site Reliability Engineering
9
10A comprehensive methodology for designing, operating, and improving reliable production systems. Rooted in Google SRE principles and extended with modern practices for incident command, observability engineering, error budget governance, and operational excellence.
11
12## When to Load This Skill
13
14| Trigger | What It Means |
15|---|---|
16| "Design reliability into this system" | SLO/SLI framework, error budget policy, resilience architecture |
17| "Run an incident postmortem" | Blameless postmortem with timeline, 5 Whys, action tracking |
18| "Improve our on-call" | Rotation design, alert tuning, toil reduction, escalation policy |
19| "Build observability" | The Four Golden Signals, dashboard design, alert rule patterns |
20| "Do a reliability review" | Architecture review against SRE principles, risk assessment |
21| "I need an incident commander" | Incident command framework, role cards, communication templates |
22| "Automate this operational task" | Toil assessment, automation decision tree, runbook pattern |
23## When not to use
24
25Use [release-engineering](../release-engineering/SKILL.md) to plan releases, compose promotion and rollback gates, or coordinate a release train. Use [systematic-debugging](../systematic-debugging/SKILL.md) to find the cause of a specific failure.
26
27## Reference Files
28
29| Topic | File | When to Load |
30|---|---|---|
31| SRE Book Chapter Summaries | `references/sre-book-chapters.md` | Design engagement, first principles review |
32| SLO/SLI Framework | `references/slo-sli-framework.md` | Defining reliability targets |
33| Error Budget Governance | `references/error-budget-governance.md` | Policy design, burn rate alerts |
34| Incident Command System | `references/incident-command-system.md` | During/after incident, training |
35| Blameless Postmortems | `references/postmortem-culture.md` | After incident, process design |
36| Monitoring & Alerting | `references/monitoring-alerting.md` | Observability design, alert rules |
37| On-Call Best Practices | `references/oncall-best-practices.md` | Rotation design, team sizing |
38| Toil Elimination | `references/toil-elimination.md` | Automation prioritization, ops review |
39| Release Engineering | [release-engineering](../release-engineering/SKILL.md) | Release planning, promotion, progressive delivery, and rollback design; use the local reference only for SRE-specific integration context |
40| Effective Troubleshooting | `references/troubleshooting.md` | Debugging methodology |
41| Senior SRE Role Blueprint | `references/senior-sre-blueprint.md` | Role definition, KPI framework |
42| SRE Communication Guide | `references/sre-communication-guide.md` | Stakeholder updates, incident communication |
43| Guiding Principles | `references/guiding-principles.md` | First principles, philosophy |
44| Product-Focused Reliability | `references/product-focused-reliability.md` | Product-centric SRE, CUJ-based SLOs, JTBD model |
45| Twenty Years of Lessons | `references/twenty-years-lessons.md` | Incident-derived tactical lessons, Prodverbs |
46| SRE Ecosystem Guide | `references/sre-ecosystem-guide.md` | Curated guide to all SRE resources (Workbook, Secure Systems, Classroom, Prodcast, STPA, Video Gallery, Mobaa, fundamentals, AI ops) |
47
48## Templates
49
50| Template | File | Purpose |
51|---|---|---|
52| Incident Commander Checklist | `templates/incident-command-checklist.md` | Step-by-step IC response |
53| Postmortem Template | `templates/postmortem-template.md` | Blameless postmortem document |
54| Runbook Template | `templates/runbook-template.md` | Operational runbook standard |
55| SLO Declaration Template | `templates/slo-declaration-template.md` | Service-level objective specification |
56| Error Budget Policy | `templates/error-budget-policy.md` | Team-level error budget governance |
57| On-Call Rotation Template | `templates/oncall-rotation.md` | Rotation schedule and escalation |
58| Service Review Checklist | `templates/service-review-checklist.md` | Pre-launch reliability review |
59| Incident Communication Template | `templates/incident-communication.md` | Status updates during incidents |
60
61## Scripts
62
63| Script | Purpose |
64|---|---|
65| `scripts/slo-burn-rate.py` | Calculate error budget burn rate from SLI data |
66| `scripts/postmortem-summary.py` | Generate a postmortem summary from structured data |
67
68## Portability
69
70This skill is intentionally host-neutral. Use your agent's normal mechanisms to load the references, templates, and scripts listed here. Do not assume a particular profile system, task orchestrator, memory service, or response-handoff format.
theheavenlyd3mon