excalidash-troubleshooting-swimlane

Generates incident troubleshooting swimlane diagrams with ownership lanes, decision branches, and terminal states.

2|Updated Jun 17, 2026
One-click install
npx skills add https://github.com/gabedsam01/excalidash-v2 --skill excalidash-troubleshooting-swimlane-gabedsam01
Or copy as Structured Prompt for Agent
Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: excalidash-troubleshooting-swimlane
Source: https://github.com/gabedsam01/excalidash-v2/tree/main/skills/excalidash/excalidash-troubleshooting-swimlane
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/gabedsam01/excalidash-v2 --skill excalidash-troubleshooting-swimlane-gabedsam01

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill includes scripts (resource) and references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve? Incident runbooks and on-call response flows are hard to communicate when ownership, retries, and escalation paths are tangled into a single flowchart. This Skill produces a left-to-right swimlane diagram where each lane is one actor, service, or system, so every step of an incident response shows exactly who owns it and how each path ends. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Ownership swimlanes: Builds one lane per actor or system (User, Support, On-call Engineer, API, Retry Worker, Escalation) with decision diamonds and labelled branch exits. - Separated incident paths: Keeps happy path, retry/backoff, error, dead-letter, fallback, escalation, and resolution branches distinct and traceable, each ending in an explicit terminal state. - Quality-gated output: Runs a lint, score, repair, and validate loop until the drawing scores at least 95 with zero hard blockers, then saves, versions, and exports it. - Use Case: Ask for a swimlane of a checkout 5xx incident and receive a diagram where Support triages, the On-call Engineer classifies transient vs bug, the Retry Worker retries with backoff to recovery or dead-letter, and out-of-SLA cases escalate to L2. ## Quick Start Ask the assistant to draw a troubleshooting swimlane for your incident, naming the lanes, the trigger, the decision points, and the terminal states such as Resolved or Escalated.

Frequently Asked Questions about excalidash-troubleshooting-swimlane

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema
How do I create a troubleshooting swimlane diagram for an incident?

Describe the incident with its lanes (one owner each), the trigger, decision questions, and terminal states. The Skill generates a left-to-right swimlane via the Excalidash MCP tools, then lints, scores, and repairs it until it reaches a score of 95 with no hard blockers.

How do I convert an existing flowchart into a swimlane?

Use the convert_diagram_type tool with targetType swimlane and direction LR. The existing incident flowchart steps are re-laid into ownership lanes, and you can then add missing branches such as a dead-letter path.

When should I use a swimlane instead of a flowchart?

Use a swimlane when ownership matters and multiple actors or systems each handle part of the flow. If the process has a single owner or no actor dimension, a plain flowchart is the better choice since a one-lane swimlane adds no information.

Can the swimlane show retry, dead-letter, and escalation paths?

Yes. The Skill separates happy path, retry/backoff, error, dead-letter, fallback, escalation, and resolution branches into distinct gutter lanes so each is traceable, and every path must end in an explicit terminal state like Resolved, Escalated, or Dead-letter.

How are secrets in runbook steps handled in diagrams?

Secrets such as bearer tokens, pager webhook tokens, and database connection strings are redacted into typed placeholders like [REDACTED_BEARER] before any tool call. The exported drawing is re-scanned as a backstop to confirm no live secret leaked.

Why does my swimlane fail validation with lane or arrow errors?

Common blockers are a step straddling two lane bands, an arrow crossing a text label, or a step overlapping a lane title. The repair tool fixes these by moving steps fully inside one lane and routing branch lines through separate gutter lanes.