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Save `postmortem-5-whys-root-cause-extractor.json` and import it into Vezz me via Saved Prompts -> Import.
Postmortem 5-Whys Root Cause Extractor Prompt | Vezz me
Download the Postmortem 5-Whys Root Cause Extractor JSON preset for Vezz me. Highlight incident narratives or outage timelines to extract blameless 5-Whys chains.
Best fit
Best for SREs, DevOps engineers, and engineering managers conducting blameless postmortems and writing root-cause analysis (RCA) documents.
On-screen walkthrough
How this looks on a real webpage.
Instead of switching tabs and rebuilding context, highlight the exact passage that slowed you down and press your shortcut (default: Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X on macOS, fully customizable in settings).
1. Highlighted on page (Public Infrastructure Outage Report — DNS Auth Server Flapping)
At 16:30 UTC, an engineer pushed a zone file update with a syntax error that passed the local CLI linter. The authoritative nameservers crashed upon reloading the malformed file. When the health check noticed the processes down, it restarted all 200 nodes simultaneously, triggering a thundering herd on the central configuration storage and preventing any server from starting for 45 minutes.
Ctrl+Shift+X“Extract a blameless 5-Whys root cause chain and failure amplifier from this postmortem.”
2. Vezz me on-screen answer overlay
1. **Blameless 5-Whys Chain**:
- *Why did DNS resolve fail?* All 200 authoritative nameservers crashed simultaneously.
- *Why did they crash?* They loaded a zone file containing a syntax error.
- *Why did they load a malformed file?* The CLI linter did not match the nameserver daemon's strict runtime grammar.
- *Why did all 200 reload at once?* The deployment system lacked staged canary rollouts.
- *Why was recovery delayed 45 minutes?* Automated crash loops caused an unthrottled thundering herd on central storage without backoff.
2. **Metastable Amplifier**: Simultaneous crash-loop restart storm overwhelmed the config backend.
3. **3 Action Items**: Add canary deployments (1 node -> 10% -> 100%); decouple runtime validation; add exponential backoff on daemon restarts.
3. Suggested follow-up questions in thread
- “How would a circuit breaker prevent this thundering herd on central storage?”
- “Draft a 2-paragraph blameless executive summary for leadership.”
Importable Prompt Preset
Use this custom prompt in Vezz me.
Copy the system prompt below or download the .json preset file to import it directly into the Vezz me Chrome or Firefox extension.
Vezz me Custom Prompt Preset
Postmortem 5-Whys Root Cause Extractor
Enforces the blameless postmortem principle: refuses to stop at 'developer pushed a bad config' and forces the causal chain down to missing blast-radius bounds and circuit breakers.
Act as a Principal Site Reliability Engineer analyzing the selected incident timeline or outage report: 1) Blameless 5-Whys Chain: construct a strict causal chain drilling from the surface symptom down through latent organizational/systemic vulnerabilities (never blame a human error or 'bad deploy'), 2) Metastable Feedback Loop: identify what amplified the outage (e.g., retry storms, health-check cascades, connection starvation), 3) Detection & Mitigation Gaps: state what telemetry was missing during the incident, and 4) Action Items (Prevent, Detect, Mitigate): suggest 3 concrete engineering fixes.Step-by-step workflow
How to run this workflow in place.
Highlight the technical incident sequence or timeline
Select the engineering description in Notion, Confluence, Slack incident canvas, or public status page.
Copy the 5-Whys and Action Items into your RCA document
Paste the generated Markdown directly into your company's postmortem template.
Key details
Why this approach works better than switching tabs.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about sre & incident review preset.
Is this preset safe to use on internal company incident reviews?
Yes! Vezz me uses activeTab only—it never scrapes your internal wiki in the background and only processes the specific timeline passage you highlight.
Can I customize the postmortem template output?
Yes! After importing into Vezz me, you can edit the prompt text to match your company's exact Jira or Confluence postmortem headers.
Where can I read our related incident workflow guide?
See our complete guide: Summarize Incident Postmortems & Status Pages.
Related workflows & guides
Explore connected pages.
Ready to try this workflow on your own reading?
Install Vezz me free, highlight text on any webpage, and press your customizable shortcut (default: Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) to get an answer right beside the source.
