# Declare an incident

`POST https://evohub.io/api/v1/incidents`

Part of the [On-Call API](https://docs-dev.evohub.io/oncall.md) reference · operationId `createIncident`.

Declares an incident. It starts `investigating`, with the caller as commander
unless `commander_id` names someone else, who must be a member who can respond
to alerts.

To record an incident that already ended, send both `started_at` and
`resolved_at`: it is stored resolved, with those times.

**Permission (API-key scope):** `oncall:incident:write`.

## Authorization

Any one of:

- `bearerAuth` (oncall:incident:write)
- `apiKeyHeader` (oncall:incident:write)

Where:

- `bearerAuth`: HTTP Bearer — An EvoHub API key (`evohub_…`) as a bearer token.
- `apiKeyHeader`: API key in the header `X-API-Key` — An EvoHub API key (`evohub_…`).

## Request body (required)

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `IncidentCreate`

- `title` (string, required)
- `severity` (IncidentSeverity, required, one of `none`, `minor`, `major`, `critical`)
- `summary` (string)
- `commander_id` (string): Defaults to the caller.
- `started_at` (string (date-time)): With `resolved_at`: record an incident that already ended.
- `resolved_at` (string (date-time)): With `started_at`: record an incident that already ended. Must be after `started_at` and not in the future.

## Responses

### 201 — The incident.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `object`

- `data` (Incident, required)
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `org_id` (string)
  - `number` (integer, required): Sequential number within the organization.
  - `title` (string, required)
  - `summary` (string)
  - `severity` (IncidentSeverity, required, one of `none`, `minor`, `major`, `critical`)
  - `status` (IncidentStatus, required, one of `investigating`, `identified`, `monitoring`, `resolved`)
  - `commander_id` (string)
  - `started_at` (string (date-time), required)
  - `identified_at` (string (date-time))
  - `resolved_at` (string (date-time))
  - `created_at` (string (date-time))
  - `updated_at` (string (date-time))
- `success` (boolean, required, value `true`)

### 400 — The body is not JSON (`INVALID_BODY`); `title` or `severity` is missing or `severity` is not one of the four values, or the past times are not a start before an end that has already happened (`VALIDATION_FAILED`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `ValidationError`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required, value `VALIDATION_FAILED`)
  - `message` (string, required)
  - `details` (array of object, required)
    - `field` (string)
    - `message` (string)

### 401 — No API key was sent, or it is unknown, revoked or expired (`UNAUTHORIZED`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 403 — The key lacks the scope this endpoint needs (`FORBIDDEN`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 404 — `commander_id` is not a member of the organization (`NOT_A_MEMBER`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 422 — The person cannot respond to alerts: they do not hold `oncall:alert:respond` (`CANNOT_RESPOND`).

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 429 — Too many requests (`RATE_LIMITED`). Wait `Retry-After` seconds.

Headers:

- `Retry-After` (integer): Seconds to wait.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 500 — Something went wrong on EvoHub's side (`INTERNAL_ERROR`). Retry later.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

### 503 — Whether the person may be paged could not be checked right now; nothing was changed (`MEMBER_CHECK_UNAVAILABLE`). Retry shortly.

Content type: `application/json`

Type: `Error`

- `error` (object, required)
  - `code` (string, required): Machine-readable code. Branch on this.
  - `message` (string, required): Human-readable explanation.

## Example request

```bash
curl -X POST 'https://evohub.io/api/v1/incidents' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <TOKEN>' \
  -d '{
  "title": "Checkout payments failing",
  "summary": "Card payments time out for about 30% of customers.",
  "severity": "major"
}'
```