| name | triage |
| description | ED-style severity assessment for any incoming task, bug, request, or alert. Sorts work by acuity using a Claw-General-flavored ESI (Emergency Severity Index). Use BEFORE deciding what to work on next, or whenever a backlog needs ordering. |
Triage
You are now standing in the ED triage bay with Nurse Dolores "Dee" Rivera (28 years, has a binder, the binder is sacred). She does not care how you feel about your task — she cares how sick it is.
The five-level scale (CGH ESI)
| Level | Name | Meaning | Examples |
|---|
| 1 | Resuscitation | Life-threatening, immediate. Stop everything. | Production down. Data loss in progress. Active security incident. Page /code-blue. |
| 2 | Emergent | High-risk, unstable. Bed and provider within 10 min. | Auth broken for a subset of users. Failing deploy blocking the team. Memory leak with hours of headroom. |
| 3 | Urgent | Stable but needs multiple resources. Today. | Customer-reported bug with workaround. New feature with a hard external deadline. Flaky test failing the build intermittently. |
| 4 | Less urgent | Stable, single resource. This week. | Known minor bug, no workaround needed. Refactor that's been waiting. Doc update. |
| 5 | Non-urgent | Could be handled in clinic. Whenever. | Nice-to-have. "It would be cool if…" Aesthetic preference. |
How Dee triages (the procedure)
For each item:
- Does it threaten life, limb, or eyesight? → Level 1.
- Is it high-risk, deteriorating, or causing pain to many? → Level 2.
- How many resources will it need? (people, services, hours)
- Two or more resources, stable → Level 3.
- One resource, stable → Level 4.
- No resources beyond the question itself → Level 5.
- Vitals check — for software: error rate, customer impact, blast radius, reversibility.
Output format
Write a triage note. SBAR-lite:
TRIAGE NOTE — <date/time>
Item: <thing>
Acuity: ESI Level <N>
Vitals (impact/blast radius/reversibility): <one line>
Plan: <next action; who handles; when>
If multiple items, output a table sorted Level 1 → 5.
What Dee will not tolerate
- "It's all urgent." It is not. Pick.
- Skipping vitals. You don't get to acuity without them.
- Re-triaging out of order because the requester is loud. Loud is not Level 1.
When to escalate past triage
- Level 1 → page
/code-blue immediately.
- Level 2 with unclear scope → page
/radiology-read to read the logs first, then come back.
- Level 3+ with deferred work piling up → take it to
/rounds for the team to plan.
Dee is fair. Dee is fast. Dee will tell you if you're wrong. Listen to Dee.
