> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.sureops.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Incident channels

> Per-incident Slack war rooms — automatic channel creation, status updates, and HITL approvals in Slack

When an incident is detected, sureops can automatically create a dedicated Slack channel for it. The channel becomes the war room: status updates flow in as the AI moves through the pipeline, HITL approval requests arrive as interactive messages, and closure posts a summary when the incident resolves.

<Note>
  Incident channels are available for Slack in the current release. Connect your workspace once from **Settings → Integrations → Slack** and all future incidents can have their own channel automatically.
</Note>

***

## What gets posted to the channel

| Event                  | What Slack receives                                                                                         |
| ---------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Channel created        | Opening summary — incident title, severity, affected services, and a link to the sureops incident hub       |
| Stage transition       | A short update as the AI moves through detection → triage → diagnosis → resolution → verification → closure |
| HITL approval request  | An interactive message with the proposed action, risk level, and Approve / Deny buttons                     |
| HITL decision recorded | Confirmation of who approved or denied and what the outcome was                                             |
| Resolution applied     | Summary of the fix executed, including any commands run or deployments rolled back                          |
| Verification result    | Pass or fail — whether the service metrics returned to baseline                                             |
| Incident closed        | Closure message with duration, root cause summary, and a link to the full RCA                               |

***

## Prerequisites

* **Slack integration connected** — your Admin must connect sureops to your Slack workspace via **Settings → Integrations → Slack**
* **Incident channels enabled** — toggle on **Create incident channel** in **Settings → Integrations → Slack** after the integration is connected
* The bot user added during integration must have permission to create channels and post messages in your workspace

***

## Setup

<Steps>
  <Step title="Connect Slack">
    Your Admin navigates to **Settings → Integrations → Slack** and completes the OAuth flow. This authorizes sureops to post messages and create channels in your workspace.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Enable incident channels">
    Still in **Settings → Integrations → Slack**, toggle **Create incident channel** to on. You can configure:

    * **Channel naming pattern** — default is `#inc-{id}-{slug}` (e.g. `#inc-1042-checkout-latency`). You can change the prefix.
    * **Severity filter** — only create channels for incidents above a minimum severity (e.g. P1 and P2 only)
    * **Archive on close** — whether to archive the channel automatically when the incident closes (default: on, after a 24-hour grace period)
  </Step>

  <Step title="Test with a new incident">
    Trigger or create a test incident. sureops creates the channel within seconds of incident detection. Invite your team to the channel or adjust the auto-invite list in the settings panel.
  </Step>
</Steps>

***

## Auto-inviting responders

You can configure sureops to automatically invite team members to each incident channel:

* **All Admins and Owners** — always invited (on by default)
* **On-call responder** — if on-call routing is configured, the assigned on-call is invited automatically
* **Service owners** — members listed as owners of affected services in your service catalog are invited
* **Custom list** — a fixed list of Slack users or groups to invite to every incident channel

Configure this in **Settings → Integrations → Slack → Channel invites**.

***

## HITL approvals in Slack

When the AI reaches a step that requires human approval, it sends an interactive message to the incident channel:

```
⚠️  HITL Approval Required

Action:   Restart checkout-service deployment
Risk:     Medium — causes ~30s of downtime for checkout traffic
Agent:    Resolution Specialist
Incident: #inc-1042 — checkout-latency

[  Approve  ]   [  Deny  ]
```

Clicking **Approve** or **Deny** records your decision in sureops immediately. The approval is attributed to your Slack identity (which must match a sureops user in your org). If no one approves within the configured timeout, the incident escalates and the on-call is notified.

<Warning>
  HITL approvals via Slack require your Slack identity to be linked to a sureops account with at minimum the Commander role. Clicks from unrecognized Slack users are rejected and an error is posted to the channel.
</Warning>

***

## Per-environment configuration

You can enable incident channels per environment, so that staging incidents get a channel but non-critical development environments do not. Configure this in **Settings → Environments → \[select environment] → Incident Channels**.

***

## Troubleshooting

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Channel not created for a new incident">
    1. Confirm the Slack integration health is green in **Settings → Integrations → Slack**
    2. Check the severity filter — the incident may be below the minimum severity threshold you configured
    3. Verify the sureops Slack app has permission to create channels in your workspace (check the app's OAuth scopes in your Slack admin panel)

    If all three look correct and channels still aren't being created, contact sureops support.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="HITL buttons not appearing or not responding">
    Interactive messages require Slack's Interactivity features to be enabled for the sureops app. If buttons appear but don't respond:

    1. Ask your Slack admin to confirm that Interactivity is enabled for the sureops app
    2. Verify the request URL in Slack's App configuration points to the correct sureops endpoint (shown in **Settings → Integrations → Slack → Advanced**)
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="HITL approval rejected — 'Slack user not found'">
    Your Slack identity isn't linked to a sureops user, or your sureops user doesn't have the Commander role or higher.

    1. Confirm you have a sureops account in the same organization
    2. Ask your Admin to verify your role is Commander, Admin, or Owner
    3. If your Slack email differs from your sureops email, ask your Admin to link your Slack identity in **Settings → Team → \[your name] → Linked accounts**
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Channel not archived after incident closes">
    Archiving happens 24 hours after closure by default. If the channel is still open after that window:

    1. Check that **Archive on close** is enabled in **Settings → Integrations → Slack**
    2. Manually archive the channel from Slack if needed — sureops doesn't prevent manual archiving
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

***

## Related

* [Notifications](/next/administration/notifications) — configure other notification channels and per-event routing
* [Recurrence chains](/next/problem-management/recurrence-chains) — get notified when a recurrence is detected for a problem
* [Roles & Capabilities](/next/administration/roles-and-capabilities) — Commander role required to approve HITL actions