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Retrospective templates help standardize post-incident documentation by pre-filling your retrospective with structured content. Templates can be used in Rootly workflows or with supported integrations to automatically generate consistent retrospective documents. Templates support Liquid, so you can dynamically insert incident and retrospective data into the generated content.
Retrospective workflows run when a retrospective is created or updated. The initial retrospective is created when the incident is resolved.

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Manage Retrospective Templates

You can create and manage retrospective templates from Retrospectives → Document Templates. Each template includes:
  • A template name
  • Template content
  • A format, such as HTML or Markdown
  • Optional default status for the workspace
Template content supports Liquid and is validated when saved. Additional resources:

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Apply Templates in Rootly

To automatically generate a retrospective in Rootly using a template, create a Retrospective workflow. This workflow can run when:
  • A retrospective is created
  • A retrospective is updated
In the workflow, add a Create Incident Retrospective action and optionally choose a retrospective template. When the workflow runs, Rootly uses that template to pre-fill the retrospective content. This is useful when you want every retrospective to start from a consistent structure, such as:
  • Incident summary
  • Timeline
  • Impact
  • Root cause
  • Follow-up actions

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Apply Templates Through Integrations

You can also use retrospective templates when creating or updating documents in supported integrations. Depending on the integration, Rootly can use your retrospective template to pre-fill a generated page or document in tools such as: In the relevant workflow action for the integration, select a retrospective template to structure the created document.
Retrospective generation is triggered when the incident is resolved, not when it is mitigated.

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Default Templates

You can mark one retrospective template as the default template for your workspace. This can help standardize how retrospectives are generated across teams and workflows.

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Workflow Conditions

Retrospective workflows can also be filtered using conditions, so you can control when a template is used. For example, you may want different templates based on:
  • Severity
  • Incident type
  • Team
  • Retrospective status
This allows you to apply the right template for the right type of incident.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A retrospective template is a reusable document structure that can be used to pre-fill post-incident documentation. It helps standardize how retrospectives are written and shared across your organization.
The initial retrospective is created when the incident is resolved. Retrospective workflows can then run when that retrospective is created or later updated.
Yes. Retrospective templates support Liquid, which allows you to insert dynamic data such as incident fields and retrospective details into the generated content.
Yes. Supported integrations can use a Rootly retrospective template to pre-fill the document or page created by a workflow action.
Yes. You can use workflow conditions to apply different templates based on incident severity, type, team, or retrospective status.