An incident report written in the first hour needs to move fast: what broke, who's affected, what's being done right now. Save the deep root-cause analysis for the postmortem that follows once things are stable. This template covers exactly the fields worth filling in during an active incident, nothing more.
Free Template
Free Incident Report Template
A copy-paste incident report structure covering impact, timeline, and immediate fix — built for the first hour after something breaks.
01
Incident report template
Use this structure while the incident is active. Save deeper analysis for a postmortem afterward.
- Severity: [Sev 1-4] — Status: [Investigating / Identified / Monitoring / Resolved]
- Impact: [who/what is affected, and since when]
- Timeline: [detected at, escalated at, mitigated at, resolved at]
- Current action: [what's being done right now, and by whom]
- Next update: [time of next status update]
02
Capture the fix while you're doing it
If the resolution involves clicking through a dashboard or running a specific sequence of commands, record it with Guidyy while you're doing it — that recording becomes the incident runbook update for next time, at zero extra effort.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?+
Yes.
Should this replace a postmortem?+
No — this is the in-the-moment report. A postmortem is the deeper review that happens after the incident is resolved.
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