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Error Budget Policy

A formal agreement that defines the actions to be taken when a service's error budget is exhausted.

Categorydev

Overview

An error budget policy provides the 'teeth' to the SRE concept of error budgets. It ensures that reliability is prioritized over feature velocity when the system's stability is at risk.

Common Policy Actions

  • Freeze Releases: No new features are deployed until the budget is replenished.
  • Prioritize Reliability: The team focuses exclusively on bug fixes, performance improvements, and technical debt.
  • Post-mortem Requirement: Mandatory deep-dive analysis for all incidents that consumed the budget.

Importance

Without a clear policy, error budgets are often ignored in favor of meeting deadlines. The policy ensures that the entire organization (including product management) is aligned on the importance of reliability.