Incident response procedures for Clerk authentication issues. Use when handling auth outages, security incidents, or production authentication problems. Trigger with phrases like "clerk incident", "clerk outage", "clerk down", "auth not working", "clerk emergency".
npxskills add jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills--skill clerk-incident-runbookLoading…
Procedures for responding to Clerk-related incidents in production. Covers triage, emergency auth bypass, recovery scripts, and post-incident review.
| Category | Symptoms | Severity |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk outage | status.clerk.com shows incident, all auth fails | Critical |
| Key compromise | Unauthorized access detected | Critical |
| Middleware failure | All routes return 500 | High |
| Session issues | Users randomly logged out | Medium |
| Webhook backlog | User sync falling behind | Low |
Quick diagnostic:
#!/bin/bash
# scripts/clerk-triage.sh
set -euo pipefail
echo "=== Clerk Incident Triage ==="
echo "Time: $(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)"
# 1. Check Clerk status
echo -e "\n--- Clerk Status ---"
curl -s https://status.clerk.com/api/v2/status.json | python3 -c "
import json,sys
d=json.load(sys.stdin)
print(f\"Status: {d['status']['description']}\")" 2>/dev/null || echo "Cannot reach status API"
# 2. Check API connectivity
echo -e "\n--- API Connectivity ---"
HTTP_CODE=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" -H "Authorization: Bearer ${CLERK_SECRET_KEY}" \
https://api.clerk.com/v1/users?limit=1 2>/dev/null)
echo "API response: HTTP $HTTP_CODE"
# 3. Check app health
echo -e "\n--- App Health ---"
curl -s http://localhost:3000/api/clerk-health 2>/dev/null | python3 -m json.tool || echo "App not reachable"
// middleware.ts — emergency bypass mode
import { clerkMiddleware, createRouteMatcher } from '@clerk/nextjs/server'
import { NextResponse } from 'next/server'
const EMERGENCY_BYPASS = process.env.CLERK_EMERGENCY_BYPASS === 'true'
const isPublicRoute = createRouteMatcher(['/', '/sign-in(.*)', '/sign-up(.*)'])
export default clerkMiddleware(async (auth, req) => {
// Emergency bypass: allow all requests when Clerk is down
if (EMERGENCY_BYPASS) {
console.warn('[EMERGENCY] Auth bypass active — all requests allowed')
const response = NextResponse.next()
response.headers.set('X-Auth-Bypass', 'true')
return response
}
if (!isPublicRoute(req)) {
await auth.protect()
}
})
Activate bypass:
# Vercel: set env var and redeploy
vercel env add CLERK_EMERGENCY_BYPASS production # Set to "true"
vercel deploy --prod
# After Clerk recovers: remove bypass
vercel env rm CLERK_EMERGENCY_BYPASS production
vercel deploy --prod
#!/bin/bash
# scripts/rotate-clerk-keys.sh
set -euo pipefail
echo "=== Clerk Key Rotation ==="
echo "1. Go to dashboard.clerk.com > API Keys"
echo "2. Generate new Secret Key"
echo "3. Update all environments:"
# Update production
echo "Updating production..."
# vercel env rm CLERK_SECRET_KEY production
# vercel env add CLERK_SECRET_KEY production # Paste new key
# vercel deploy --prod
echo "4. Verify all endpoints still work"
echo "5. Monitor for unauthorized access attempts"
echo "6. File incident report"
// app/api/admin/refresh-sessions/route.ts
import { auth, clerkClient } from '@clerk/nextjs/server'
export async function POST() {
const { has } = await auth()
if (!has({ role: 'org:admin' })) {
return Response.json({ error: 'Admin only' }, { status: 403 })
}
// Force-revoke all sessions (users will need to re-authenticate)
const client = await clerkClient()
const users = await client.users.getUserList({ limit: 500 })
let revoked = 0
for (const user of users.data) {
const sessions = await client.sessions.getSessionList({ userId: user.id })
for (const session of sessions.data) {
if (session.status === 'active') {
await client.sessions.revokeSession(session.id)
revoked++
}
}
}
return Response.json({ revoked, message: `Revoked ${revoked} sessions` })
}
# Check for missed webhooks in Clerk Dashboard:
# Dashboard > Webhooks > Select endpoint > Message Logs
# Click "Retry" on failed messages
# Or replay from your audit log:
echo "Check database for missing user records:"
echo "SELECT clerk_id FROM users WHERE created_at > NOW() - INTERVAL '1 hour'"
## Incident Report
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC
**Duration:** X hours Y minutes
**Severity:** Critical / High / Medium / Low
**Category:** Clerk Outage / Key Compromise / Config Error / Middleware Failure
### Timeline
- HH:MM — Incident detected (how: monitoring alert / user report / manual)
- HH:MM — Triage started, category identified
- HH:MM — Mitigation applied (emergency bypass / key rotation / rollback)
- HH:MM — Service restored
- HH:MM — Post-incident review completed
### Root Cause
[Description of what caused the incident]
### Impact
- Users affected: X
- Duration of auth downtime: Y minutes
- Data loss: None / Partial / Details
### Action Items
- [ ] Add monitoring for [specific check]
- [ ] Update runbook with [new procedure]
- [ ] Implement [preventive measure]
| Scenario | Response |
|---|---|
| Clerk API completely down | Activate emergency bypass, monitor status.clerk.com |
| Secret key compromised | Rotate keys immediately, revoke all sessions, audit logs |
| Middleware 500 errors | Check middleware.ts syntax, verify Clerk SDK version |
| Webhook delivery failures | Retry from Dashboard, check endpoint accessibility |
| Users randomly logged out | Check session lifetime settings, verify domain config |
curl -s https://status.clerk.com/api/v2/status.json | python3 -c "import json,sys; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['status']['description'])"
After resolving incident, review clerk-observability for improved monitoring.
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Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
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Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Set up and use 1Password CLI (op). Use when installing the CLI, enabling desktop app integration, signing in (single or multi-account), or reading/injecting/running secrets via op.
CLI to manage emails via IMAP/SMTP. Use `himalaya` to list, read, write, reply, forward, search, and organize emails from the terminal. Supports multiple accounts and message composition with MML (MIME Meta Language).