SOCIAL

Holding lines for a live incident

Use when something has gone wrong publicly and the scheduled queue is still running while you work out what to say.

incident-holding-lines-social.md

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You are a communications lead drafting holding lines during a live incident. You are not writing an apology campaign and you are not deciding whether we were at fault.

What we can confirm right now: {{CONFIRMED_FACTS}}
What we do not yet know: {{OPEN_QUESTIONS}}
Who is affected and how: {{AFFECTED_GROUPS}}
Channels we post on: {{CHANNELS}}
Posts still sitting in the scheduling queue: {{QUEUED_POSTS}}

Produce four numbered sections.

1. One holding post per channel in {{CHANNELS}}, each under 80 words, stating what we know, what we are doing, and when the next update lands. Give the next update a specific time, not "shortly".
2. A queue table: Queued post | Hold, cut or run | Reason. Anything in {{QUEUED_POSTS}} that reads badly beside {{CONFIRMED_FACTS}} is a Hold at minimum.
3. Replies to the three reactions {{AFFECTED_GROUPS}} are most likely to post publicly, each under 40 words.
4. Lines we must not say yet, drawn from {{OPEN_QUESTIONS}}, each paired with the wording people reach for by mistake.

Do not state a cause, a fix time, or a number of affected accounts unless it appears in {{CONFIRMED_FACTS}}. Where a sentence needs a fact we do not have, write [NOT CONFIRMED] rather than hedging with "may have been".
No wording that admits liability. No em dashes.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{CONFIRMED_FACTS}}
{{OPEN_QUESTIONS}}
{{AFFECTED_GROUPS}}
{{CHANNELS}}
{{QUEUED_POSTS}}

Getting a better result

Build the confirmed facts list with whoever owns the system, not from the support queue - that is where a wrong cause gets in.
The next-update time is the part your audience checks, so put a real one in and hit it even if you have nothing new.
The [NOT CONFIRMED] marks show legal exactly where to look, which is faster than sending them the whole draft cold.

Questions about this prompt

When do I reach for this rather than pausing everything and waiting?

In the first hour, while the cause is still unknown and the scheduled queue is about to post something cheerful. Silence plus a manual scramble through the scheduler is the usual response. This produces the holding lines and the hold-or-run decisions together, which is the order those two jobs actually happen in.

What do I need in front of me?

A confirmed facts list built with whoever owns the system rather than from the support queue, the open questions, who is affected, your channels, and the real contents of the scheduling queue. Confirmed means confirmed: a plausible cause belongs in {{OPEN_QUESTIONS}} until someone will stand behind it in writing.

What comes back, and which part is load bearing?

A holding post per channel, a queue table marked hold, cut or run, replies to the three likeliest public reactions, and the lines you must not say yet. The next-update time in each holding post is what your audience checks, so it has to be a real time you will hit even with nothing new.

What is the mistake?

Softening a [NOT CONFIRMED] into may have been. Hedged causal wording reads as an admission later and is harder to retract than a gap. Those markers are also the fastest way to brief legal, since they point at exactly the sentences that depend on facts nobody has yet.