Escalation Policies

Escalation policies ensure incidents are never missed. If the primary on-call doesn't acknowledge within a configurable timeout, the incident automatically escalates to the next level.

How it works

1. 1. Incident triggered — The on-call engineer at level 1 of the escalation policy is notified via their preferred channels.
2. 2. No acknowledgment — If the no-ack timeout expires (e.g., 5 minutes), the incident escalates to level 2.
3. 3. Acknowledgment — Acknowledging stops the escalation timer. The responder owns the incident.
4. 4. Further escalation — Additional levels can notify team leads, managers, or entire channels as a last resort.

Escalation events are recorded in the incident timeline, creating a full audit trail of who was notified, when, and whether they responded.