Is this based on industry standards?

Yes, these patterns align with Google SRE principles and PagerDuty's recommended practices for operational reliability and incident management.

Can I use this for mid-incident handoffs?

Yes, it includes a specific 'Incident Handoff' template designed for high-severity (SEV) events where the Incident Commander or Technical Lead role is transferring.

What types of templates are included?

The skill offers three primary templates: a detailed Shift Handoff Document, a Quick Async Handoff for low-activity shifts, and a dedicated Mid-Incident Handoff.

How does this skill improve incident response?

It provides structured templates that ensure no critical context—such as active investigations, recent deployments, or known workarounds—is lost during shift changes.

Does it include checklists for new on-call engineers?

Absolutely, it features a pre-shift checklist to verify VPN access, database permissions, and alerting configurations before a rotation begins.

On-Call Handoff Patterns

Name: On-Call Handoff Patterns
Author: GaitanS

byGaitanS

Analytics & Monitoring

Standardizes on-call shift transitions using structured context transfer, incident documentation, and escalation procedures to ensure service reliability.

About

On-Call Handoff Patterns provides a comprehensive framework for managing engineering shift transitions, minimizing context loss, and maintaining incident response continuity. It equips teams with standardized templates for shift summaries, active incident tracking, and mid-incident handoffs, alongside actionable checklists for pre-shift readiness and post-shift accountability. By formalizing the handoff process, this skill helps teams reduce Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) and prevent alert fatigue through structured communication, clear escalation paths, and rigorous documentation of ongoing investigations and recent infrastructure changes.

Key Features

Best practices for reducing alert fatigue and maintaining operational documentation
0 GitHub stars
Handoff sync meeting agendas for efficient verbal context transfer
Structured checklists for pre-shift, during-shift, and post-shift routines
Standardized escalation guidelines and trigger definitions
Comprehensive templates for shift summaries and mid-incident handoffs

Use Cases

Documenting ongoing investigations and intermittent issues to prevent duplicate work
Transitioning on-call responsibilities between engineers during weekly rotation changes
Formalizing technical leadership handoffs during high-severity incident responses

About

Key Features

Best practices for reducing alert fatigue and maintaining operational documentation
0 GitHub stars
Handoff sync meeting agendas for efficient verbal context transfer
Structured checklists for pre-shift, during-shift, and post-shift routines
Standardized escalation guidelines and trigger definitions
Comprehensive templates for shift summaries and mid-incident handoffs

Use Cases

Documenting ongoing investigations and intermittent issues to prevent duplicate work
Transitioning on-call responsibilities between engineers during weekly rotation changes
Formalizing technical leadership handoffs during high-severity incident responses