Operations

Operational Diagnostics Workflows

A diagnostics workflow is a small, repeatable sequence of checks a team runs together — for example DNS → SSL → blacklist whenever an email server misbehaves. Saving these as workflows turns one-off troubleshooting into a calm, repeatable operations practice.

Quick summary

  • Name your workflows after the symptom, not the tool.
  • Most teams need fewer than 10 saved workflows.
  • Restore a workflow in one click during incidents.
  • Review and prune workflows every quarter.

Common workflow templates

  • Mail bounce: MX → SPF/DKIM/DMARC → DNSBL → SSL on mail host.
  • Site down: DNS A/AAAA → HTTP headers → SSL → traceroute.
  • Slow site: Ping → traceroute → DNS lookup → speed test.
  • Domain migration QA: DNS → WHOIS → SSL → blacklist.
  • Reputation review: IP reputation → DNSBL → WHOIS → blacklist.

How to design a workflow

  1. Pick a symptom your team has investigated twice.
  2. Write down the checks you ran, in order.
  3. Save it as a workflow with the symptom as the name.
  4. Next incident, resume instead of starting from scratch.

Troubleshooting workflow

Run through these steps in order. Each step links to the right diagnostic tool.

  1. 1

    Run the checks you'd run anyway

    Use the diagnostics tools normally during your next investigation.

  2. 2

    Save the chain

    From the dashboard, save the recent checks as a named workflow.

    Open Open dashboard
  3. 3

    Resume on the next incident

    Click Resume on the saved workflow to re-run the first check with the same input — then walk down the chain.

Frequently asked questions

What's a diagnostics workflow?

A short, named sequence of checks your team runs together for a specific class of incident. Example: 'Mail bounce' → MX records, SPF, DKIM, DNSBL, SSL.

Why save workflows instead of running checks one by one?

Saved workflows eliminate the cognitive load of remembering which checks to run, reduce skipped steps during incidents, and make on-call handoffs trivial.

Should every diagnostic be in a workflow?

No. One-off lookups stay one-off. Save workflows only for sequences your team repeats more than once a month.

Where are workflows stored?

On your device, privately. Nothing about your workflow chain is sent to a server unless you explicitly export or share it.

Monitor it continuously

Save this check, get alerts on changes, and track multiple domains in one dashboard.

Learn about monitoring