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design-on-call-rotation

pjt222
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Designaidesign

About

This skill designs sustainable on-call rotations with balanced schedules, clear escalation policies, and handoff procedures to minimize burnout. Use it when setting up on-call for the first time, scaling teams, addressing alert fatigue, or improving incident response. It helps maintain coverage while managing fatigue through structured rotations.

Quick Install

Claude Code

Recommended
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npx skills add pjt222/agent-almanac -a claude-code
Plugin CommandAlternative
/plugin add https://github.com/pjt222/agent-almanac
Git CloneAlternative
git clone https://github.com/pjt222/agent-almanac.git ~/.claude/skills/design-on-call-rotation

Copy and paste this command in Claude Code to install this skill

Documentation

值班輪替之設

立可久之值班表:排班衡平、升級明晰、防疲有節、交接有法,俾保事件響應而不疲其人。

用時

  • 初立值班制
  • 由 2-3 人擴為 5 人以上之隊
  • 解值班過勞或告警疲勞
  • 改事件響應之時
  • 事後復盤指出交接之弊

  • 必要:隊之人數與時區
  • 必要:服務 SLA 之要(響應時、覆蓋時段)
  • 可選:歷史事件之量與時
  • 可選:值班補償之預算
  • 可選:現行值班工具(PagerDuty、Opsgenie)

第一步:定輪班之表

依隊之大小擇輪班之長:

## Rotation Models

### Weekly Rotation (5+ person team)
- **Length**: 7 days (Monday 09:00 to Monday 09:00)
- **Pros**: Predictable, easy to plan around
- **Cons**: Whole week disrupted if alerts are frequent

### 12-Hour Split (3-4 person team)
- **Day shift**: 08:00-20:00 local time
- **Night shift**: 20:00-08:00 local time
- **Pros**: Shared burden, night coverage paid differently
- **Cons**: More handoffs, coordination needed

### Follow-the-Sun (Global team)
- **APAC**: 00:00-08:00 UTC
- **EMEA**: 08:00-16:00 UTC
- **Americas**: 16:00-00:00 UTC
- **Pros**: No night shifts, timezone-aligned
- **Cons**: Requires distributed team

### Two-Tier (Senior/Junior split)
- **Primary**: Junior engineers (first responder)
- **Secondary**: Senior engineers (escalation)
- **Pros**: Training opportunity, lighter senior load
- **Cons**: Risk of junior burnout

五人隊之表例:

Week 1: Alice (Primary), Bob (Secondary)
Week 2: Charlie (Primary), Diana (Secondary)
Week 3: Eve (Primary), Alice (Secondary)
Week 4: Bob (Primary), Charlie (Secondary)
Week 5: Diana (Primary), Eve (Secondary)

得: 班表公轉且給 24/7 之覆蓋。

敗則: 覆蓋有缺則增人或縮 SLA 為僅工作時段。

第二步:設升級政策

於 PagerDuty/Opsgenie 設分級升級:

# PagerDuty escalation policy (YAML representation)
escalation_policy:
  name: "Production Services"
  repeat_enabled: true
  num_loops: 3

  escalation_rules:
    - id: primary
      escalation_delay_in_minutes: 0
      targets:
        - type: schedule
          id: primary_on_call_schedule

    - id: secondary
      escalation_delay_in_minutes: 15
      targets:
        - type: schedule
          id: secondary_on_call_schedule

    - id: manager
      escalation_delay_in_minutes: 30
      targets:
        - type: user
          id: engineering_manager

繪升級流程:

Alert Fires
    ↓
Primary On-Call Paged
    ↓
Wait 15 minutes (no ack)
    ↓
Secondary On-Call Paged
    ↓
Wait 15 minutes (no ack)
    ↓
Manager Paged
    ↓
Repeat cycle (max 3 times)

得: 升級之路明,延時合理。

敗則: 升級過頻則縮確認之窗或察告警質量。

第三步:定交接之法

書結構化交接表:

## On-Call Handoff Checklist

### Outgoing On-Call
- [ ] Update incident log with any ongoing issues
- [ ] Document any workarounds or known issues
- [ ] Share any alerts that are "noisy but safe to ignore" temporarily
- [ ] Note any upcoming deploys or maintenance windows
- [ ] Provide context on any flapping alerts

### Incoming On-Call
- [ ] Review incident log from previous shift
- [ ] Check for any ongoing incidents
- [ ] Verify PagerDuty/Opsgenie has correct contact info
- [ ] Test alert delivery (send test page to yourself)
- [ ] Review recent deploys and release notes
- [ ] Check capacity metrics for any concerning trends

### Handoff Meeting (15 min)
- Review any incidents from past week
- Discuss any changes to systems or runbooks
- Questions and clarifications

自動化交接提醒:

# Slack reminder script
curl -X POST https://slack.com/api/chat.postMessage \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SLACK_BOT_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "channel": "#on-call",
    "text": "On-call handoff in 1 hour. Outgoing: @alice, Incoming: @bob. Please use the handoff checklist: https://wiki.company.com/oncall-handoff"
  }'

得: 知識傳遞順暢,班次之間無信息流失。

敗則: 因交接不足而事件復發則令交接為必行之程。

第四步:施疲勞管理

立規以防過勞:

## Fatigue Prevention Rules

### Alert Volume Limits
- **Threshold**: Max 5 pages per night (22:00-06:00)
- **Action**: If exceeded, trigger incident review next day
- **Goal**: Reduce noisy alerts that disrupt sleep

### Time Off After Major Incident
- **Rule**: If on-call handles P1 incident >2 hours overnight, they get comp time
- **Amount**: Equal to incident duration (e.g., 3-hour incident = 3 hours off)
- **Scheduling**: Must be taken within 2 weeks

### Maximum Consecutive Weeks
- **Limit**: No more than 2 consecutive weeks on-call
- **Reason**: Prevents exhaustion from extended coverage

### Minimum Rest Between Rotations
- **Cooldown**: At least 2 weeks between primary rotations
- **Exception**: Emergency coverage (requires manager approval)

### Vacation Protection
- **Rule**: No on-call during scheduled vacation
- **Process**: Mark as "Out of Office" in PagerDuty 2 weeks in advance
- **Swap**: Coordinate swap with team, update schedule

追告警疲勞之指標:

# Alerts per on-call engineer per week
count(ALERTS{alertstate="firing"}) by (oncall_engineer)

# Nighttime pages (22:00-06:00 local)
count(ALERTS{alertstate="firing", hour_of_day>=22 or hour_of_day<6})

# Time to acknowledge (should be <5 min during business hours)
histogram_quantile(0.95, rate(alert_ack_duration_seconds_bucket[7d]))

得: 值班負荷可久,工程師不陷長久之疲。

敗則: 雖立規仍過勞則減告警之量或增人。

第五步:書運行手冊與升級聯繫

作值班速查指南:

# On-Call Quick Reference

## Emergency Contacts
- **Engineering Manager**: Alice Smith, +1-555-0100
- **CTO**: Bob Johnson, +1-555-0200
- **Security Team**: [email protected], +1-555-0300
- **Cloud Provider Support**: AWS Support Case Portal

## Common Runbooks
- [Database Connection Pool Exhaustion](https://wiki/runbook-db-pool)
- [High API Latency](https://wiki/runbook-api-latency)
- [Disk Space Full](https://wiki/runbook-disk-full)
- [SSL Certificate Expiration](https://wiki/runbook-ssl-renewal)

## Access & Credentials
- **Production AWS**: SSO via company.okta.com
- **Kubernetes**: `kubectl --context production`
- **Database**: Read-only access via Bastion host
- **Secrets**: 1Password vault "On-Call Production"

## Escalation Decision Tree
- **P1 (Service Down)**: Immediate response, escalate to manager after 30min
- **P2 (Degraded)**: Response within 15min, escalate if not resolved in 1 hour
- **P3 (Warning)**: Acknowledge, resolve during business hours
- **Security Incident**: Immediately escalate to Security Team, don't investigate alone

得: 值班者於二分鐘內可得所需之信息。

敗則: 工程師屢問「某處何在」則集中文檔。

第六步:定期行值班復盤

月察值班之驗:

## On-Call Retrospective Agenda (Monthly)

### Metrics Review (15 min)
- Total alerts: [X] (target: <50/week)
- Nighttime pages: [Y] (target: <5/week)
- Mean time to acknowledge: [Z] (target: <5 min)
- Incidents by severity: P1: [A], P2: [B], P3: [C]

### Qualitative Feedback (20 min)
- What was the most challenging incident?
- Which alerts were noisy/low-value?
- Were runbooks helpful? Which need updates?
- Any gaps in monitoring or alerting?

### Action Items (10 min)
- Fix noisy alerts identified
- Update runbooks that were incomplete
- Adjust rotation schedule if needed
- Plan alert tuning work

### Recognition (5 min)
- Shout-outs for excellent incident response
- Share learnings from interesting incidents

時追改善:

# Generate monthly on-call report
cat > oncall_report_2025-02.md <<EOF
# On-Call Report: February 2025

## Key Metrics
- **Total Alerts**: 38 (down from 52 in January)
- **Nighttime Pages**: 4 (within target)
- **P1 Incidents**: 1 (database outage, 45min MTTR)
- **P2 Incidents**: 3 (all resolved <1 hour)

## Improvements Made
- Tuned CPU alert threshold (reduced false positives by 40%)
- Added runbook for Redis cache failures
- Implemented log rotation (prevented disk full alerts)

## Upcoming Changes
- Migrate to follow-the-sun rotation (Q2)
- Add Slack alert integration (in progress)
EOF

得: 值班之驗月月見進,告警之量漸減。

敗則: 指標不進則上報於領導。或須暫停新功能之工以修運維之弊。

  • 輪班表覆所需之時段(24/7 或工作時段)
  • 升級政策已測(發測試告警)
  • 交接程式已書且共享於隊
  • 疲勞管理規則已定
  • 值班速查指南已全且可訪
  • 月度復盤已排期
  • 值班補償已核准(若適)

  • 人過少:三人以下即每二三週一值,不可久。週輪最少五人
  • 無升級延時:立刻升至經理費其時。先與主班十五分鐘以應
  • 略交接:知識不傳致錯誤復發。交接宜為必行
  • 略告警疲勞:工程師因噪而略告警則要事遺漏。宜嚴整調
  • 無補償:值班無酬或無調休生怨。宜預此算

  • configure-alerting-rules — 減告警之噪以除疲勞
  • write-incident-runbook — 書值班時所引之運行手冊

GitHub Repository

pjt222/agent-almanac
Path: i18n/wenyan/skills/design-on-call-rotation
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