Tools and Access

Before you go on-call, you need the right tools and permissions. This page covers what you need and how to get it set up.

Core Tools You’ll Need

1. Incident.io (On-Call Platform)

What it is: Our central system for managing on-call schedules, receiving pages, and coordinating incident response.

What to do:

• You should already have been invited
• Install on your phone (iOS or Android)
• Test that pages come through

2. Monitoring Platform Access

Your team uses one or more of these:

• Grafana — Dashboards and metrics
• Logs — Logs
• Sentry — Error Tracking

What to do:

• Ask your manager which ones your team uses
• Get added to each platform
• Bookmark the critical dashboards for Authentication, Authorization, and Pipeline Security
• Test accessing them during work hours

3. Access to Logs and Observability

What it is: The ability to search logs, traces, and metrics for your services.

What to do:

• Ask your team which log system you use
• Ensure you have access to production logs for SSCS services
• Familiarize yourself with common log queries for your domain

4. Runbooks and Documentation

• Runbooks
• SSCS-specific runbooks (to be developed as the rotation matures)

What to do:

• Bookmark the main Runbook pages
• Familiarize yourself with 3-5 core runbooks for your domain
• Contribute to runbook creation based on incidents you handle

Communication Tools

Slack

You should already have this, but make sure you are in the following Slack channels:

• tier2-sme-rollout
• #sscs-tier2-rotation-coordination
• Your team-specific channels:
  • Authentication team channel: #g_sscs_authentication/#authentication_lounge
  • Authorization team channel: #g_sscs_authorization
  • Pipeline Security team channel:#g_sscs_pipeline-security

Additionally make sure the following is true:

• You’re in incident channels (will be added dynamically)
• You have notifications on so you see mentions

Phone Number

Your phone number needs to be:

• In Incident.io (for pages)
• Current and working
• Reachable during your shift

Email

Make sure your work email works and you can receive incident notifications.

SSCS-Specific Access

Depending on your domain, you may need:

Authentication Team

• Access to authentication service logs and metrics
• SAML/OAuth debugging tools
• Session management dashboards

Authorization Team

• Access to authorization service logs and metrics
• Permission debugging tools
• Role and policy management dashboards

Pipeline Security Team

• Access to CI/CD pipeline logs and metrics
• Security scanning service dashboards
• Artifact and dependency scanning tools

Creating a Pre-Shift Checklist

Before going on-call, test:

• Incident.io app on phone sends notifications
• I can access production logs for my domain
• I can read my team’s documentation and runbooks
• My Slack notifications are working
• My phone number is current
• I know how to access monitoring dashboards

Related Pages

• Your First Shift — Set up tools before your first shift
• Handoffs and Continuity — Use these tools during handoffs
• Communication and Culture — Communicate through tools like Slack