> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://support.incidentlake.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://support.incidentlake.com/incidents/overview.md).

# What is an incident?

How incidents are organized, what each status means, and how to find the right one.

An incident is a shared record of something that went wrong — or might be going wrong — and how your team responded. Everyone in the organization works from the same page instead of hunting through chat history.

Open **Incidents** in the sidebar to see the list.

## Status

| Status             | Meaning                                        |
| ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **Ongoing**        | The team is actively responding                |
| **Stalled**        | Work has paused or is waiting on something     |
| **Resolved**       | The issue is closed                            |
| **Cancelled**      | The incident was opened but will not be worked |
| **False Positive** | It was not a real incident                     |

Cancelled and merged incidents are left out of most analytics so they do not distort trends.

## Severity and category

Severity is a scale from **SEV-1** (most urgent) to **SEV-5**. Category is typically **System**, **Security**, or **Operational**. Set both as soon as you have a point of view — they drive filters, notifications, and reports.

## Find an incident

On the list you can:

* Search by keyword
* Filter by status, severity, category, tags, assignee, and more
* Ask AI to find **similar past incidents** from a description in your own words
* Export the current view or selected rows as a spreadsheet
* Import a batch of historical incidents from a spreadsheet (Administrators and Members)

{% hint style="info" %}
**Consult AI** on the incident list is meant for the moment before you declare. Describe the symptoms; Incident Lake shows similar past cases and can help you open a new incident from that conversation.
{% endhint %}

## Open an incident

Select a row to open the detail page. The page is the source of truth for that incident: summary, timeline, tasks, response times, reports, and linked conversations.


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