First 10 Minutes Checklists¶

This section provides symptom-driven checklists for rapid stabilization in the first 10 minutes of an Elastic Beanstalk incident.

Methodology in 10 Minutes¶

• Minute 0-2: classify primary symptom and blast radius.
• Minute 2-5: collect high-signal data (eb events, eb health, eb logs).
• Minute 5-8: test top one or two hypotheses with minimal safe changes.
• Minute 8-10: stabilize service or escalate with evidence package.

Checklist Flow¶

flowchart TD
    A[Incident Trigger] --> B{Primary Symptom}
    B -->|Deploy failed| C[Deployment Failures Checklist]
    B -->|Health degraded| D[Health Degradation Checklist]
    B -->|Cannot connect| E[Connectivity Issues Checklist]
    C --> F[Escalation or Playbook]
    D --> F
    E --> F
    F --> G[Document Evidence and Timeline]

Checklists¶

Shared Command Set¶

eb events --environment "$ENV_NAME" --profile "eb-ops"

eb health --environment "$ENV_NAME" --profile "eb-ops" --refresh

eb logs --environment "$ENV_NAME" --profile "eb-ops"

aws elasticbeanstalk describe-environments \
    --application-name "$APP_NAME" \
    --environment-names "$ENV_NAME" \
    --profile "eb-ops" \
    --region "$REGION"

Escalation Guardrails¶

• Escalate when service impact is ongoing and first-response checks do not isolate a safe remediation.
• Include exact UTC timestamps, environment ID, and error snippets from events/logs.
• Declare tested hypotheses explicitly to prevent duplicate triage loops.

What Not to Do in First 10 Minutes¶

• Avoid broad configuration changes without hypothesis and rollback plan.
• Avoid simultaneous edits to networking, platform version, and application code.
• Avoid deleting and recreating environments before collecting root-cause evidence.

10-Minute Evidence Template¶

Use this compact structure in incident notes:

Handoff Criteria¶

Escalate from first-response to playbook execution when:

• A clear symptom category is identified and first checks are complete.
• At least one evidence-backed hypothesis is documented.
• Additional mitigation requires deeper category-specific steps.

Cross-Section Shortcut Map¶

• If deployment fails before instance replacement, start with Deployment Failures.
• If health transitions continue after successful deploy, switch to Health Degradation.
• If users cannot reach endpoint at all, switch to Connectivity Issues.
• If diagnosis is unclear, return to Decision Tree.

See Also¶

• Troubleshooting Hub
• Decision Tree
• Mental Model
• Troubleshooting Method
• Log Sources Map
• Playbooks Hub

Sources¶

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/troubleshooting.html
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/eb-cli3.html
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/using-features.events.html
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/using-features.logging.html