# How to avoid bad assumptions during incidents

DevFeed: [How to avoid bad assumptions during incidents](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-to-avoid-bad-assumptions-during-incidents-11802.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://incident.io/blog/how-to-avoid-bad-assumptions-during-incidents>)

Author: Lawrence Jones

Published: 2021-09-24T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The incident.io Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-incident-io-blog.md>)

Topics: [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident.md>), [Incident response](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident-response.md>), [API](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/api.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>), [Google](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/google.md>)

Tags: [api](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api.md>), [customers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/customers.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [google](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/google.md>), [http](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/http.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident.md>), [incident-channel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-channel.md>), [incident-management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-management.md>), [incident-response](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-response.md>), [outage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/outage.md>), [post-mortem](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/post-mortem.md>), [slack-incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack-incident.md>), [verify](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/verify.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains how unverified assumptions can derail incident investigations. Using a case involving downcased HTTP headers, a public API integration, Google's load balancer, and customer impact, it recommends verifying past conclusions and increasing the required level of evidence as incident stakes rise.

## Source excerpt

Any good investigation builds on assumptions, and when they're wrong you can end up down a dark path. Read about an incident where this happened badly, and learn some strategies to avoid falling into the same trap.