> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kodostatus.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Draft Incidents
> Review auto-created incidents before they go live on your public status page
Draft incidents let you catch false alarms before your subscribers see them. When a monitor detects a failure, the incident is created but hidden from the public status page until you confirm it's real.
## Why Use Drafts?
Without drafts, a transient network blip triggers a public incident, emails all your subscribers, and posts to your Slack channel — then resolves 30 seconds later. Draft mode prevents that.
| Without drafts | With drafts |
| -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Monitor fails → public incident → subscriber emails sent | Monitor fails → draft incident → you review → publish when confirmed |
| False alarm visible to all users | False alarm caught before anyone sees it |
| Must resolve quickly to limit damage | Review at your pace, discard or publish |
## Enabling Draft Mode
1. Go to **Settings > Automation**
2. Set **Auto-incident visibility** to **Create as draft**
3. Optionally set an **Auto-publish delay**
4. Click **Save Automation Settings**
Once enabled, all auto-created incidents (from uptime monitors, heartbeat monitors, integrations, and error detection) will start as drafts. Manually created incidents are always public.
## The Draft Lifecycle
```
Monitor detects failure
|
v
Safeguard checks pass
(threshold, cooldown, dedup, etc.)
|
v
Incident created as DRAFT
- Not visible on public status page
- No subscriber notifications sent
- Visible in dashboard with "Draft" badge
|
+--> You review in dashboard
| |
| Real issue? -----> Click "Publish" -----> Public on status page
| | Subscriber notifications sent
| False alarm? ---> Resolve it ------------> Never seen by subscribers
|
+--> Auto-publish timer expires (if configured)
|
v
Automatically published
Subscriber notifications sent
```
## Reviewing Drafts
Draft incidents appear in **Dashboard > Incidents** with a yellow **Draft** badge. They work like regular incidents — you can add updates, change status, and link services — but they're invisible to the public.
To find drafts quickly, use the **visibility filter** and select **Drafts**.
### Publishing a Draft
Click the **Publish** button on any draft incident card. The incident immediately becomes visible on your public status page and subscriber notifications are sent.
### Discarding a False Alarm
If the draft is a false positive, just resolve it normally. Since it was never published, no subscribers were notified and it never appeared on the status page. It stays in your resolved incidents history for internal reference.
## Auto-Publish
If you want a review window without requiring manual intervention, set an auto-publish delay:
1. Go to **Settings > Automation**
2. Set **Auto-publish delay** to your review window (e.g., 5 minutes)
| Delay | Behavior |
| ------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 0 | Drafts stay as drafts until you manually publish or resolve |
| 5 min | You have 5 minutes to review; if you don't act, it publishes automatically |
| 30 min | Longer review window for teams that check less frequently |
If you resolve the incident before the auto-publish timer expires, it's discarded without ever going public.
## Notifications and Drafts
Draft incidents **hold all subscriber notifications** until published:
| Event | Draft | Public |
| ----------------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| Incident created | No notifications | Notifications sent immediately (or batched) |
| Incident updated | No notifications | Notifications sent |
| Incident published | Notifications sent now | N/A (already public) |
| Incident resolved while draft | No notifications ever | Notifications sent |
Team members still see drafts in the dashboard — drafts only hide from the **public status page** and **subscriber notifications**.
## Using Workflows with Drafts
If you use [workflows](/automation/workflows), you can build different automation for drafts vs. confirmed incidents:
* **`incident.created`** fires for both drafts and public incidents
* **`incident.published`** fires only when a draft becomes public
Common pattern: send an internal Slack alert when a draft is created so your team can review it, and only page on-call when the incident is published.
See example workflow configurations for draft review alerts and publish-triggered paging.
## Drafts and Safeguards
Draft mode is one part of the [incident safeguards](/automation/incident-safeguards) system. It works alongside:
* **Flap protection** — requires consecutive failures before even creating a draft
* **Cooldown** — prevents rapid duplicate drafts for the same monitor
* **Notification batching** — coalesces notifications when drafts are published close together
* **Maintenance awareness** — skips incident creation entirely during scheduled maintenance
These safeguards apply *before* the draft is created. Drafts are for the incidents that pass all automated checks but you still want human review before going public.