Incident
An unplanned event that degrades or interrupts a service or business operation.
Plain English
Something went wrong and needs coordinated response.
In context
An incident has defined impact urgency ownership communication and resolution processes.
Example
“We declared an incident after payment failures crossed the threshold.”
When you'll hear this
- on-call
- operations
- customer support
Common misunderstanding
Not every bug is an incident; impact and operational response matter.
Also known as
production incident
Commonly used by
Related terms
Updated: 2026-08-25
