Can this skill help with post-mortem documentation?

Yes, the skill includes a structured workflow to generate comprehensive RCA reports that include timelines, impact assessments, evidence, and suggested fixes.

When is the best time to use the RCA skill?

Trigger this skill whenever a production alert fires, metrics show anomalous patterns, or users report unexpected behavior that requires a systematic investigation.

What is the Five Whys technique in this skill?

The Five Whys is a systematic interrogation process used to peel away layers of symptoms by repeatedly asking 'Why?' to reach the underlying cause of a system failure.

How does it help distinguish between symptoms and root causes?

It categorizes observable effects (like 500 errors) as symptoms and uses data-driven investigation to trace them back to specific triggers like misconfigurations or code regressions.

Does this skill integrate with other developer tools?

Yes, it is designed to work in conjunction with metrics analysis tools, git investigation commands, and platform integrations to gather full-context evidence.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Expert

Name: Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Expert
Author: evangelosmeklis

byevangelosmeklis

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Analytics & Monitoring

Implements a systematic methodology to investigate, diagnose, and document the underlying causes of production incidents and system outages.

About

The Root Cause Analysis (RCA) skill provides Claude with a structured framework for diagnosing complex system failures and production errors. By utilizing proven techniques like the 'Five Whys' and chronological timeline reconstruction, it enables users to move beyond superficial symptoms to identify the specific code changes, configuration errors, or infrastructure shifts that triggered an issue. This skill is essential for site reliability engineers and developers who need to transition quickly from an active alert to a validated fix and a comprehensive post-mortem report, ensuring that production errors are resolved at the source.

Key Features

Symptom vs. root cause differentiation to avoid surface-level patching
Structured 'Five Whys' technique to drill down to underlying triggers
Standardized RCA reporting template for professional incident documentation
Chronological timeline reconstruction correlating deployments with system anomalies
4 GitHub stars
Evidence-based investigation workflows utilizing logs, metrics, and git history

Use Cases

Tracing the impact of configuration changes on database performance
Generating detailed post-mortem reports for engineering stakeholders and clients
Investigating sudden spikes in API latency or error rates after a deployment

About

Key Features

Symptom vs. root cause differentiation to avoid surface-level patching
Structured 'Five Whys' technique to drill down to underlying triggers
Standardized RCA reporting template for professional incident documentation
Chronological timeline reconstruction correlating deployments with system anomalies
4 GitHub stars
Evidence-based investigation workflows utilizing logs, metrics, and git history

Use Cases

Tracing the impact of configuration changes on database performance
Generating detailed post-mortem reports for engineering stakeholders and clients
Investigating sudden spikes in API latency or error rates after a deployment