Error budget policy: template and examples

An error budget policy is a written agreement on what a team does as error budget runs low. It turns SLOs into decisions agreed in advance.

Template

1. Scope: services and SLOs covered; owner.
2. Healthy (over 50% left): normal release pace.
3. Warning (20–50% left): reliability work first next sprint; risky releases need sign-off.
4. Critical (under 20% left): release freeze except fixes; daily review.
5. Exhausted: freeze until budget recovers; postmortem required.
6. Exceptions: who can override, and how it’s recorded.
7. Review: quarterly.