Incident Response Automation with Human Authority
Automate alert enrichment, evidence collection, coordination, and repeatable response steps while incident commanders retain authority.
Receive and deduplicate alerts, gather approved context, prepare response steps, and escalate decisions according to the incident plan.
- Receive and deduplicate the alert
- Enrich with approved evidence
- Apply bounded runbook steps
AI can support triage and coordination; incident leaders retain authority over severity, containment, customer communication, and closure.
What this workflow does
An incident-response workflow links each action to the alert, current runbook, responsible owner, and recoverable system state.
Start with one alert class and an approved runbook whose systems, evidence, owners, escalation path, and closure criteria have been tested. The workflow can enrich and coordinate, while containment, privileged access, data-loss judgment, external notification, and closure remain with the incident commander.
How the workflow runs
Receive and deduplicate the alert
Preserve the original alert, assign a stable event ID, identify the affected service, and suppress only proven duplicates.
Enrich with approved evidence
Collect authorized logs, asset context, recent changes, ownership, and the current runbook without changing evidence.
Apply bounded runbook steps
Prepare recommended actions or execute only low-risk, reversible steps that the runbook explicitly authorizes.
Escalate command decisions
Send containment, privileged access, possible data loss, legal, customer, and public-notice decisions to the incident commander.
Record timeline and closure
Maintain the event timeline, actions, approvals, evidence, recovery state, and closure decision for review.
Controls to define before launch
| Control area | What the agent handles | What the team controls |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Allowed data, systems, and actions | Approve alert classes, evidence sources, runbooks, allowed actions, access scopes, escalation paths, and closure criteria. |
| Review | Approvers and response times | The incident commander approves containment, privileged actions, data-loss assessment, external notice, recovery, and closure. |
| Exceptions | Fallback owner and escalation path | Route missing telemetry, conflicting evidence, unknown assets, unsafe actions, unavailable systems, and possible policy breaches. |
| Evidence | Sources, actions, and corrections | Preserve alert IDs, evidence references, tool actions, timestamps, approvals, handoffs, system state, and closure record. |
| Recovery | Retry limits and rollback plan | Require idempotent actions, checkpoints, retry limits, rollback, staffed fallback, and an incident owner for partial execution. |
What to do before and after the pilot
Before launch
Choose a tested alert and runbook pair, use test access, verify owners and evidence, and exercise duplicates, missing data, denial, timeout, and rollback.
After launch
Review enrichment completeness, routing quality, time to accountable owner, unauthorized or duplicate actions, recovery, closure evidence, and runbook corrections.
Connect the workflow with OpenMax
OpenMax can coordinate alert context, bounded response actions, human escalation, and the timeline needed for review after closure.
Frequently asked questions
Where should a pilot begin?
Begin with one well-understood alert class and an approved runbook whose evidence, owners, safe actions, and closure criteria are tested.
What must remain under human control?
People retain containment, privileged access, data-loss and legal assessment, external notifications, major recovery choices, and closure.
How should teams evaluate the pilot?
Measure evidence completeness, routing, owner response, duplicate or unauthorized actions, recovery, closure evidence, and runbook corrections.
