Databricks incident runbook

Databricks Incident Runbook

Overview

Rapid incident response for Databricks: triage script, decision tree, immediate actions by error type, communication templates, evidence collection, and postmortem template. Designed for on-call engineers to follow during live incidents.

Severity Levels

Level	Definition	Response Time	Examples
P1	Production pipeline down	< 15 min	Critical ETL failed, data not updating
P2	Degraded performance	< 1 hour	Slow queries, partial failures, stale data
P3	Non-critical issues	< 4 hours	Dev cluster issues, non-critical job delays
P4	No user impact	Next business day	Monitoring gaps, cleanup needed

Instructions

Step 1: Quick Triage (Run First)

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
echo "=== DATABRICKS TRIAGE $(date -u +%H:%M:%S\ UTC) ==="

# 1. Is Databricks itself down?
echo "--- Platform Status ---"
curl -s https://status.databricks.com/api/v2/status.json | \
  jq -r '.status.description // "UNKNOWN"'

# 2. Can we reach the workspace?
echo "--- Workspace ---"
if databricks current-user me --output json 2>/dev/null | jq -r .userName; then
    echo "API: CONNECTED"
else
    echo "API: UNREACHABLE — check VPN/firewall/token"
fi

# 3. Recent failures
echo "--- Failed Runs (last 1h) ---"
databricks runs list --limit 20 --output json 2>/dev/null | \
  jq -r '.runs[]? | select(.state.result_state == "FAILED") |
    "\(.run_id): \(.run_name // "unnamed") — \(.state.state_message // "no message")"' || \
  echo "Could not fetch runs"

# 4. Cluster health
echo "--- Clusters in ERROR state ---"
databricks clusters list --output json 2>/dev/null | \
  jq -r '.[]? | select(.state == "ERROR") |
    "\(.cluster_id): \(.cluster_name) — \(.termination_reason.code // "unknown")"' || \
  echo "Could not fetch clusters"

Step 2: Decision Tree

Is the issue affecting production data pipelines?
├─ YES: Is it a single job or multiple?
│   ├─ SINGLE JOB
│   │   ├─ Cluster failed to start → Step 3a
│   │   ├─ Code/logic error → Step 3b
│   │   ├─ Data quality issue → Step 3c
│   │   └─ Permission error → Step 3d
│   │
│   └─ MULTIPLE JOBS → Likely infrastructure
│       ├─ Check platform status (status.databricks.com)
│       ├─ Check workspace quotas (Admin Console)
│       └─ Check network/VPN connectivity
│
└─ NO: Is it performance?
    ├─ Slow queries → Check query plan, warehouse sizing
    ├─ Slow cluster startup → Check instance availability
    └─ Data freshness → Check upstream dependencies

Step 3a: Cluster Failed to Start

CLUSTER_ID="your-cluster-id"

# Get termination reason
databricks clusters get --cluster-id $CLUSTER_ID | \
  jq '{state, termination_reason}'

# Check recent events
databricks clusters events --cluster-id $CLUSTER_ID --limit 10 | \
  jq '.events[] | "\(.timestamp): \(.type) — \(.details // "none")"'

# Common fixes:
# QUOTA_EXCEEDED → Terminate idle clusters
# CLOUD_PROVIDER_LAUNCH_FAILURE → Check instance availability in region
# DRIVER_UNREACHABLE → Network/security group issue

# Quick fix: restart
databricks clusters start --cluster-id $CLUSTER_ID

Step 3b: Code/Logic Error

RUN_ID="your-run-id"

# Get run details and error
databricks runs get --run-id $RUN_ID | jq '{
  state: .state,
  tasks: [.tasks[]? | {key: .task_key, result: .state.result_state, error: .state.state_message}]
}'

# Get task output for failed tasks
databricks runs get-output --run-id $RUN_ID | jq '{
  error: .error,
  trace: (.error_trace // "" | .[0:1000])
}'

# Repair failed tasks only (skip successful ones)
databricks runs repair --run-id $RUN_ID --rerun-tasks FAILED

Step 3c: Data Quality Issue

-- Quick data sanity check
SELECT COUNT(*) AS total_rows,
       COUNT(DISTINCT id) AS unique_ids,
       SUM(CASE WHEN amount IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS null_amounts,
       MIN(created_at) AS oldest,
       MAX(created_at) AS newest
FROM prod_catalog.silver.orders
WHERE created_at > current_timestamp() - INTERVAL 1 DAY;

-- Check recent table changes
DESCRIBE HISTORY prod_catalog.silver.orders LIMIT 10;

-- Restore to previous version if corrupted
RESTORE TABLE prod_catalog.silver.orders TO VERSION AS OF 5;

Step 3d: Permission Error

# Check current user
databricks current-user me

# Check job permissions
databricks permissions get jobs --job-id $JOB_ID

# Fix permissions
databricks permissions update jobs --job-id $JOB_ID --json '{
  "access_control_list": [{
    "user_name": "[email protected]",
    "permission_level": "CAN_MANAGE_RUN"
  }]
}'

Step 4: Communication

Internal (Slack)

:red_circle: **P1 INCIDENT: [Brief Description]**

**Status:** INVESTIGATING
**Impact:** [What data/users are affected]
**Started:** [Time UTC]
**Current Action:** [What you're doing now]
**Next Update:** [+30 min]

**IC:** @[your-name]

External (Status Page)

**Data Pipeline Delay**
We are experiencing delays in data processing.
Dashboard data may be up to [X] hours stale.
Started: [Time] UTC
Status: Actively investigating
Next update: [Time] UTC

Step 5: Evidence Collection

#!/bin/bash
INCIDENT_ID=$1
RUN_ID=$2
CLUSTER_ID=$3

mkdir -p "incident-$INCIDENT_ID"

# Collect everything
databricks runs get --run-id $RUN_ID --output json > "incident-$INCIDENT_ID/run.json" 2>&1
databricks runs get-output --run-id $RUN_ID --output json > "incident-$INCIDENT_ID/output.json" 2>&1

if [ -n "$CLUSTER_ID" ]; then
    databricks clusters get --cluster-id $CLUSTER_ID --output json > "incident-$INCIDENT_ID/cluster.json" 2>&1
    databricks clusters events --cluster-id $CLUSTER_ID --limit 50 --output json > "incident-$INCIDENT_ID/events.json" 2>&1
fi

tar -czf "incident-$INCIDENT_ID.tar.gz" "incident-$INCIDENT_ID"
echo "Evidence: incident-$INCIDENT_ID.tar.gz"

Step 6: Postmortem Template

## Incident: [Title]

**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD | **Duration:** Xh Ym | **Severity:** P[1-4]
**IC:** [Name]

### Summary
[1-2 sentences: what happened and what was the impact]

### Timeline (UTC)
| Time | Event |
|------|-------|
| HH:MM | Alert fired / issue detected |
| HH:MM | Investigation started |
| HH:MM | Root cause identified |
| HH:MM | Mitigation applied |
| HH:MM | Resolved |

### Root Cause
[Technical explanation]

### Impact
- Tables affected: [list]
- Data staleness: [hours]
- Users affected: [count/teams]

### Action Items
| Priority | Action | Owner | Due |
|----------|--------|-------|-----|
| P1 | [Preventive fix] | [Name] | [Date] |
| P2 | [Monitoring gap] | [Name] | [Date] |

Output

• Issue triaged and severity assigned
• Root cause identified via decision tree
• Immediate remediation applied
• Stakeholders notified with structured updates
• Evidence collected for postmortem

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Can't reach API	Token expired or VPN down	Re-auth: databricks auth login
runs repair fails	Run too old for repair	Create new run with same config
RESTORE TABLE fails	VACUUM already cleaned old versions	Restore from backup or replay pipeline
Cluster restart loops	Init script failing	Check cluster events for init script errors

Examples

One-Line Health Checks

# Last 5 runs for a job
databricks runs list --job-id $JID --limit 5 | jq '.runs[] | "\(.state.result_state): \(.run_name)"'

# Quick cluster restart
databricks clusters restart --cluster-id $CID && echo "Restart initiated"

# Cancel all active runs for a job
databricks runs list --job-id $JID --active-only | jq -r '.runs[].run_id' | \
  xargs -I{} databricks runs cancel --run-id {}

Resources

• Databricks Status
• Support Portal
• Community Forum

Next Steps

For data handling and compliance, see databricks-data-handling.