> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://developer.harness.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://developer.harness.io/ai-sre/ai-sre-for-administrators/get-started/setup-incident-types.md).

# Set Up Your First Incident Type

Define incident types for your teams to standardize your response process by defining severity levels, response teams, and escalation procedures.

### Before you begin <a href="#before-you-begin" id="before-you-begin"></a>

* **AI SRE access:** A Harness project with AI SRE enabled. Go to the [AI SRE onboarding guide](/ai-sre/ai-sre-for-administrators/get-started/overview.md) to review prerequisites.
* **Response process:** A clear idea of the severity levels and required fields your teams use to classify incidents.

### Create incident types <a href="#create-incident-types" id="create-incident-types"></a>

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{% tab title="Step by Step" %}

#### Create an incident type <a href="#create-an-incident-type" id="create-an-incident-type"></a>

To create an incident type:

1. Navigate to **Incidents**
2. Click on **Incident Types**
3. Click on **Create Incident Type**
4. Fill details in the form with the incident type information
5. Click on **Save**

#### Configure incident fields <a href="#configure-incident-fields" id="configure-incident-fields"></a>

Once the incident type is created, you can configure the incident fields:

1. Check the **Default Fields** and **Custom fields**, and update them as per the requirements
2. Click on the **edit icon** to check the default fields
3. You can set **Optional fields** as **Required**
4. Click on **Save**

#### Add custom fields <a href="#add-custom-fields" id="add-custom-fields"></a>

Click on **Add Custom Field** to add any extra fields as part of the incident creation form:

1. Fill in the details of the additional field
2. Hit **Save**

#### Configure the creation form <a href="#configure-the-creation-form" id="configure-the-creation-form"></a>

Click on **Creation Form**:

1. By default, you will have a creation form for the selected fields from the left pane
2. Click on the **checkbox** to add any more fields to the form as per your requirements

#### Test your incident type <a href="#test-your-incident-type" id="test-your-incident-type"></a>

Test your incident type:

1. Fill in the details of the incident in text fields
2. Type or fill from the dropdown options
3. Click on **Create** to make a new incident of the new incident type
4. Hit **Save** from the top right

#### Add runbooks (optional) <a href="#add-runbooks-optional" id="add-runbooks-optional"></a>

Additionally, you can add **runbooks** to your incident type for automated response workflows.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Interactive Guide" %}
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Set up your incident types
{% endembed %}

Define incident types to standardize severity levels, responders, and escalation paths.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}

***

### Next steps <a href="#next-steps" id="next-steps"></a>

* Go to [Configure Webhooks](/ai-sre/ai-sre-for-administrators/get-started/configure-webhooks.md) to enable external tools to create alerts.
* Go to [Customize Severity & Priority Labels](/ai-sre/ai-sre-for-administrators/set-up-incident-management/severities-priorities.md) to customize severity and priority labels.