clerk-incident-runbook

name	clerk-incident-runbook
description	Manage incident response for Clerk authentication issues. Use when handling auth outages, security incidents, or production authentication problems. Trigger with phrases like "clerk incident", "clerk outage", "clerk down", "auth not working", "clerk emergency".
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Edit, Bash(npm:*), Bash(curl:*), Grep
version	1.14.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","clerk","security","authentication","incident-response"]
compatibility	Designed for Claude Code, also compatible with Codex and OpenClaw

Clerk Incident Runbook

Overview

Procedures for responding to Clerk-related incidents in production. Covers triage, emergency auth bypass, recovery scripts, and post-incident review.

Prerequisites

• Access to Clerk Dashboard (dashboard.clerk.com)
• Access to application logs and monitoring
• Emergency contact list for on-call team
• Rollback procedures documented

Instructions

Step 1: Triage — Identify Incident Category

Category	Symptoms	Severity
Clerk outage	status.clerk.com shows incident, all auth fails	Critical
Key compromise	Unauthorized access detected	Critical
Middleware failure	All routes return 500	High
Session issues	Users randomly logged out	Medium
Webhook backlog	User sync falling behind	Low

Quick diagnostic:

#!/bin/bash
# scripts/clerk-triage.sh
set -euo pipefail

echo "=== Clerk Incident Triage ==="
echo "Time: $(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)"

# 1. Check Clerk status
echo -e "\n--- Clerk Status ---"
curl -s https://status.clerk.com/api/v2/status.json | python3 -c "
import json,sys
d=json.load(sys.stdin)
print(f\"Status: {d['status']['description']}\")" 2>/dev/null || echo "Cannot reach status API"

# 2. Check API connectivity
echo -e "\n--- API Connectivity ---"
HTTP_CODE=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -H "Authorization: Bearer ${CLERK_SECRET_KEY}" \
  https://api.clerk.com/v1/users?limit=1 2>/dev/null)
echo 


 -e 
curl -s http://localhost:3000/api/clerk-health 2>/dev/null | python3 -m json.tool ||