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What does "postmortem" mean in programming?
postmortem is one of the most common terms in software development. This guide explains what it means, how it is used in practice, and why it matters, with real examples from the developer world.
Definition
A document written after an incident that analyzes what happened, why it happened, what the impact was, and what actions will prevent recurrence. Should be blameless and focus on systemic improvements rather than individual mistakes.
Example
"The postmortem identified the root cause: a missing index that caused timeouts under load. Action item: add the index and add a query-time alert."
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