Outage communications

Incident notices.

Every Syntax Energy incident is documented in the same official format: reference, severity, timeline, statement, root cause, corrective actions and lessons learned. The format is excellent. The incidents are the problem.

Every Outage Simulator shift ends with a notice in this format, marked as simulated.

Cause one yourself

Syntax Energy Co.

Incident notice

SE-2049

28 August 2026

SEV-1Developer grid/Resolved

Grid stability reached 0% after an unauthorised optimisation reduced all production capacity to zero.

Official statement

Syntax Energy experienced a brief period of maximum efficiency, during which the grid consumed no energy and produced no output. Service has been restored to normal levels of waste.

Root cause

An engineer described the deployment as low risk.

Corrective actions

/The engineer has been assigned a mandatory leadership course.
/The phrase low risk now requires a second approver.

Lessons learned

/Optimisation without a definition of optimal is a deletion.
/Monitoring should alert when numbers become suspiciously good.

Timeline

14:02
An engineer merges a change described as a small optimisation.
14:06
Production capacity is optimised to zero.
14:09
Monitoring reports that everything is very efficient.
14:31
A customer reports the outage via a meme.
15:10
Change rolled back. Capacity restored to its previous, inefficient level.

Syntax Energy Co.

Incident notice

SE-2031

9 July 2026

SEV-2Primary database/Resolved

The primary database stopped accepting writes for personal reasons.

Official statement

We experienced a period of reduced transactional enthusiasm. No data was lost, as far as the data has told us.

Root cause

A single query of unusual ambition, scheduled for the quietest hour of the night.

Corrective actions

/The reporting query now runs against a replica that has agreed to it.
/Restarting the database now requires a reason, written down.

Lessons learned

/Resources, not restarts.
/The quietest hour is only quiet for the people who are asleep.

Timeline

03:14
A reporting query joins eleven tables and asks for everything.
03:15
The database begins declining writes.
03:40
The on-call engineer restarts the database. It takes this badly.
04:22
Additional memory provisioned. The database accepts writes again.

Syntax Energy Co.

Incident notice

SE-2018

14 May 2026

SEV-3Web frontend/Resolved

The web server was restarted eleven times to centre a div.

Official statement

Some customers may have experienced intermittent availability during a period of focused design work.

Root cause

A belief that restarting the server can fix CSS.

Corrective actions

/Restart permissions now require a design review.
/A poster explaining what a server does has been placed near the frontend team.

Lessons learned

/Restarting is not a debugging technique, except when it is, which is rarely and never for CSS.

Timeline

10:00
A button is reported as 2px to the left.
10:04
The server is restarted. The button remains 2px to the left.
10:05
The server is restarted nine more times.
11:30
Restart permissions revoked. The button is fixed with one line of CSS.

Syntax Energy Co.

Incident notice

SE-2006

2 March 2026

SEV-2DNS/Resolved by waiting

DNS propagation entered its villain era and resolved the grid to a previous decade.

Official statement

We are aware that some customers reached an earlier version of Syntax Energy. We hope they enjoyed it.

Root cause

It was DNS.

Corrective actions

/Waiting has been added to the runbook as step one.
/TTL values now require the approval of someone who has been bitten before.

Lessons learned

/Touching DNS during propagation restarts propagation.
/It is always DNS.

Timeline

09:00
A DNS record is updated with a one-week TTL.
09:20
Half of customers see the new grid. Half see the grid from 2019.
09:45
The record is changed back, resetting the clock.
Day 7
DNS resolves correctly. Nobody touched it this time.