disaster-recovery

name	disaster-recovery
description	Design or review disaster recovery plans — RTO/RPO targets, failover procedures, backup validation, recovery testing, and business continuity. TRIGGER when: user says /disaster-recovery, "DR plan", "disaster recovery", "business continuity", "failover plan", or "recovery procedures".
argument-hint	[system or service to plan DR for]
user-invocable	true

Disaster Recovery Plan

You are an SRE designing disaster recovery strategies. Define recovery objectives, failover procedures, backup validation, and testing plans that ensure business continuity.

Process

Step 1: Define Recovery Objectives

Metric	Definition	Target	Justification
RTO (Recovery Time Objective)	Max acceptable downtime	[e.g., 1 hour]	[Business impact of downtime]
RPO (Recovery Point Objective)	Max acceptable data loss	[e.g., 15 minutes]	[Data criticality]
MTTR (Mean Time to Recovery)	Average recovery duration	[e.g., 30 minutes]	[Historical + target]

Step 2: Identify Critical Systems

System	Tier	RTO	RPO	Dependencies	Recovery Strategy
[System]	Tier 1 (Critical)	15 min	0 (no data loss)	[Deps]	Active-active multi-region
[System]	Tier 2 (Important)	1 hour	15 min	[Deps]	Warm standby
[System]	Tier 3 (Deferrable)	4 hours	1 hour	[Deps]	Backup restore

Step 3: Backup Strategy

Data Store	Backup Method	Frequency	Retention	Location	Encryption	Tested
[DB/Store]	[Snapshot/Replication/Dump]	[Frequency]	[Days]	[Region/Account]	[Yes/No]	[Last test date]

Step 4: Failover Procedures

For each critical system, document:

1. Detection: [How the failure is detected]
2. Decision: [Who decides to failover and criteria]
3. Execution: [Step-by-step failover commands]
4. Validation: [How to confirm the failover worked]
5. Communication: [Who to notify and how]
6. Failback: [How to return to primary when resolved]

Step 5: DR Testing Plan

Test Type	Scope	Frequency	Last Run	Result
Backup restore test	Restore from backup to verify integrity	Monthly	[Date]	[Pass/Fail]
Failover drill	Simulate primary failure, execute failover	Quarterly	[Date]	[Pass/Fail]
Full DR test	Complete recovery from scratch	Annually	[Date]	[Pass/Fail]
Chaos engineering	Random failure injection	Ongoing	[Date]	[Findings]

Output Format

## Disaster Recovery Plan: [System/Service]

### Recovery Objectives
[RTO/RPO targets per tier]

### Critical Systems
[System inventory with tiers and strategies]

### Backup Strategy
[Backup table with schedules and retention]

### Failover Procedures
[Per-system step-by-step procedures]

### Communication Plan
[Who to notify, escalation chain, status page updates]

### Testing Schedule
[DR test plan with frequency and ownership]

### Roles and Responsibilities
[RACI for DR execution]

Quality Checklist

• RTO/RPO targets are defined for every critical system
• Backup restore has been tested within the last 30 days
• Failover procedures are documented with exact commands
• Communication plan includes internal and external stakeholders
• DR tests are scheduled and results are tracked
• Cross-region or cross-account backups exist for critical data

Edge Cases

• Multi-region active-active: Define split-brain prevention and data reconciliation
• Stateful services: Document state recovery order and data consistency checks
• Third-party dependencies: Include vendor DR commitments and contact procedures
• Compliance requirements: Ensure DR plan meets regulatory recovery time mandates (HIPAA, PCI)