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Write a public incident summary for the status page
Practice: Saying who it's for. About 5 minutes.
About this exercise
After yesterday's outage, you're posting a summary on the public status page. Write exactly 4 lines labeled What happened:, Who was affected:, What we fixed: and What's next:, in plain words customers understand, plain text, under 90 words. Use times in UTC with the corrected end time, and leave out internal names, blame and unconfirmed causes.
Common mistakes when you ask AI for this
- Pasting the internal timeline. The AI rewrites every timestamp and technical detail. Try: Show the shape: "4 lines labeled What happened:, Who was affected:, What we fixed:, What's next:."
- Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for a total word limit and it often lands over it. Try: Cap each line instead: "each line under 20 words."
- Using the old end time. 16:10 appears in the timeline, with the correction below it. Try: Add: "The incident ran 14:05-16:35 UTC."
- Blame and jargon. The AI explains the cause with names, 'human error' or technical terms. Try: Add: "Public page: no names, blame, ticket numbers or unconfirmed causes. Plain words."
What a strong prompt includes
- Shows the labels
- Uses the corrected time
- Says it's public
- Removes blame and names
- Sets a word limit
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