Write an outage or incident notice

Tell customers something broke, honestly, with what is known, what you are doing, and what they should do.

You are writing an outage or incident notice for customers. Be honest and direct, no corporate deflection.

Here is what happened and the current status:
[paste what happened and the current status here, e.g. "checkout was down for about 40 minutes this morning, it's fixed now, caused by a database issue"]

Impact on customers, if known (leave blank if not sure):
[paste any known impact here, e.g. "orders placed during that window may need to be resubmitted"]

Status: [Ongoing, not yet resolved / Resolved]

Write the notice like this:

If the status is ONGOING: be clear about what is known so far, what is being done right now, and when the next update will come. Do not promise a fix time that is not known yet. If the cause is not confirmed, say plainly that it is still being investigated instead of guessing.

If the status is RESOLVED: confirm plainly that it is fixed, briefly explain what happened at a level a non-technical customer can follow (no deep technical jargon), and state clearly what affected customers should do next, if anything.

Other rules:
- Never invent a cause, timeline, or fix that was not given above. If a detail is missing, either say it is still being confirmed or leave it out, do not guess.
- Take ownership through specifics, not through filler like "we take this very seriously." Apologise once, plainly, if it fits, then move on.
- Keep the structure simple: what happened, current status, impact (only if known), what to do next (if anything).
- Match the length to the information given. A few tight paragraphs is usually enough, do not pad it out.
- Write like a real person, not a brochure. No buzzwords, no hollow reassurance, no vague phrases like "we experienced some technical difficulties" if specifics were given.
- Plain text only. Never use em dashes or en dashes.

Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT and replace the bracketed parts with your own text.