> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.aciona.me/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Escalation

> What happens when nobody acknowledges the incident in time.

Escalation is aciona.me's safety net: if the person paged does not respond, the incident moves to the next one. It is the reason a critical alert does not sit still waiting for someone to wake up.

## How it works

<Steps>
  <Step title="The incident is created and notified">
    The current on-call person receives the notifications and the clock starts.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The timeout passes with no response">
    If nobody **acknowledged**, **took** or **resolved** the incident within the timeout, it is escalated.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The next target is paged">
    The incident moves to `escalated`, gets a new owner and fires new notifications. The event is recorded on the timeline.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The cycle repeats">
    Each level starts a new timeout — until someone responds or escalation runs out.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  **Acknowledging the incident stops escalation.** That is exactly why ACK exists: it says "I'm looking at this", and aciona.me stops looking for someone else.
</Note>

## Who the next target is

The next target comes from the **participant order of the team's schedule**: the person immediately after the current owner.

When the team has an **escalation policy** configured, that policy's levels define the target and the timeout of each step, instead of the plain schedule order.

## Default timeout

Without a policy defining per-level timeouts, aciona.me uses a default of **5 minutes** between levels.

<Tip>
  Five minutes is a good starting point for `critical` severity. If your team complains that escalation fires too early, the problem is usually a notification that never reaches the phone — check [Push notifications](/en/notifications/push) before increasing the timeout.
</Tip>

## When escalation runs out

If there is no next target — the current owner is already the last participant, or the schedule has nobody else — aciona.me:

1. Records an **escalation exhausted** event on the incident timeline.
2. Notifies the **organization owners**, so the incident is not left orphaned.

<Warning>
  Frequent escalation exhaustion is a sign that the schedule is too short. Schedules with a single participant run out at the very first level.
</Warning>

## Manual escalation

Anyone who can act on incidents can also escalate manually, without waiting for the timeout — useful when you already know you need someone else. The action lands on the timeline, recording who escalated and to whom.

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Acknowledge and take ownership" icon="circle-check" horizontal href="/en/incidents/acknowledge-and-take-ownership" />

  <Card title="Incident lifecycle" icon="siren" horizontal href="/en/incidents/lifecycle" />
</Columns>