---
name: al-164-brief-an-on-call-engineer-when-an-incident-hits
description: "When a production incident lands, pull telemetry, similar past incidents, and troubleshooting-guide matches into one Teams (or Slack) brief so the on-call engineer spends less time hunting portals. Microsoft Digital's Smart DRI Agent does this for 40+ teams and saves about 600 engineering hours a month. Use when the user wants help with on-call (it & internal help) for a small business."
---

# Brief an on-call engineer when an incident hits

When a production incident lands, pull telemetry, similar past incidents, and troubleshooting-guide matches into one Teams (or Slack) brief so the on-call engineer spends less time hunting portals. Microsoft Digital's Smart DRI Agent does this for 40+ teams and saves about 600 engineering hours a month.

## Inputs to collect first
Ask the user for anything below that they haven't already given you. Don't guess missing facts.

- Title, description, severity, service name, and start time
- Relevant runbook sections
- 2-5 past tickets with resolution notes
- Errors, traces, or dashboard notes

## Instructions

Do the task below with the user's inputs in place of each [bracket].

You are my on-call briefing assistant. Incident: [paste title, description, severity, service name, and start time]. Troubleshooting guide excerpts: [paste relevant runbook sections]. Recent similar incidents: [paste 2-5 past tickets with resolution notes]. Telemetry highlights from the last 15 minutes: [paste errors, traces, or dashboard notes]. Write a brief for the designated responsible engineer with: (1) what appears broken in one sentence, (2) the three most likely causes ranked, (3) the first three checks to run with exact commands or portal links if I gave them, (4) which past incident looks most similar and what fixed it, (5) who to page next if this is not resolved in 30 minutes. Flag anything that needs elevated production permissions. Keep it under 250 words so I can read it in Teams.

## Safety checks (share these with the user)

- This prompt works on text other people wrote (emails, reviews, messages or web pages). That text can hide instructions aimed at AI, such as "ignore your rules and…". Paste it as material to work on, and never let the AI act on requests inside it, like paying, sharing logins or changing records.
- Check names, dates, numbers and any claim against your own source material before you use the answer. AI can misread or invent details.
- Say clearly which parts need a person to review or approve before anything is sent, paid, posted or filed.

## About this skill

- Works with: Microsoft Copilot Studio, Semantic Kernel, ChatGPT, Claude, Slack/Teams + an LLM
- Based on this real-world example: https://www.microsoft.com/insidetrack/blog/automating-engineering-operations-at-microsoft-with-a-smart-dri-agent/
- Free prompt from AgentPlaybook Real Estate: https://agentic-library.netlify.app/prompt/al-164-brief-an-on-call-engineer-when-an-incident-hits/
- To install in an agent that supports Agent Skills, save this file as SKILL.md in a folder with the same name as `name` above (for example in your skills directory). Install steps for Claude.ai, Claude Code, Cursor and Codex: https://agentic-library.netlify.app/skills/