Instructions for Halon

Instructions tell Halon how your team wants it to work in one place, such as where to look first for a service or what never to touch on a database. You write them for a team, a service or a resource, and Halon follows them in every chat and investigation that touches that place. What holds for the whole workspace goes in the handbook.

Instructions are not evidence. Halon follows them, but never takes them as a fact about what happened. For facts about your setup, such as which database is production, use memory instead.

Writing instructions

Open Memory under Halon in the sidebar and choose the Instructions tab. The Instructions for Halon card lists every set of instructions, each headed by where it applies, with who last wrote it and when.

1. Choose Add instructions.
2. Under Applies to, pick an entry from the catalog (shown with its type, such as Checkout · Service) or a resource from the map (shown with its provider).
3. Write the instructions, up to 2,000 characters. For example, “Check the Northflank logs for the worker before the web service” or “Never suggest restarting the primary database. Page the data team instead.”
4. Choose Save instructions.

Each place holds one set of instructions, so a place that already has some is not offered again. Edit those instead. Instructions that look like they hold a credential, such as a token or a connection string with a password, are not saved, and Firefight says what it found.

Writing, editing and removing instructions needs Catalogue with update. Admins have it, and a member needs it granted under Gateway → Permissions. Everyone else can read them.

Editing and removing

Open the menu on a set of instructions and choose Edit to change the wording. Where they apply stays as it was. The current wording is kept as history when you save, and Show under the instructions, such as Show 2 earlier wordings, lists every earlier version with who wrote it and when.

Choose Delete to remove them. Firefight asks first, and Remove confirms. Halon stops following them from its next chat or investigation. Their wording is kept as history, and you can write new ones for that place at any time.

If someone else changed or removed the same instructions while you were editing, your change is not saved and you see their version instead, with a message saying so.

When Halon follows them

Instructions go in when Halon works on an incident they apply to.

Instructions for	Followed when Halon works on an incident that
A service	Names that service
A team	Names a service linked to that team in the catalog
A resource on the map	Names a service that runs on that resource

That covers a chat in an incident’s Slack channel, an investigation of an incident, and a question asked over MCP that names an incident. A chat on the dashboard’s Chat page, and an investigation of a question rather than an incident, follow the handbook.

Halon reads them with what they apply to, most general first. Where two disagree, the more specific one wins, so a service’s instructions override the handbook and a team’s.

A chat reads the current instructions with every question, so an edit counts from your next question. An investigation reads them once when it starts, so an edit counts from the next investigation.

On the map

A resource’s panel on the Map page shows the instructions written for that resource and for the catalog entries linked to it, under Instructions for and where they apply. When there are none, the panel links to the Memory page to add some. See Resource map.

Resources you cannot see

If an admin limited which environments you can see on the map, instructions written for a resource outside them are hidden from you. They are not listed on the Memory page or the Map page, you cannot pick that resource when adding instructions, and Halon leaves them out when it works for you. An investigation follows the instructions for the resources Firefight’s own Halon agent can see. See Permissions.