An on-call is an operational staffing practice in which a designated person or rotation of people remain available outside normal working hours to respond to incidents, alerts, or service disruptions when they occur. Its parameters include the on-call rotation schedule, escalation procedures, response-time requirements (e.g., initial response within 15 minutes), compensation or time-off-in-lieu arrangements, and the tools provided for remote access. The practice persists through documented rotation schedules, calendar integration, and organizational policy. [formal: ad-vigilam | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
on-call
An on-call is an operational staffing practice in which a designated person or rotation of people remain available outside normal working hours to respond to incidents, alerts, or service disruptions when they occur. Its parameters include…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made operational practice where a designated person or team remains available outside normal working hours to respond to incidents, alerts, or service disruptions. Its parameters include the rotation schedule, escalation procedures, and response-time expectations. Built to persist through staffing schedules and on-call rotation systems.
Names and aliases
- on-callen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmsip7bsg00pinobpjm0rpp62SERVES →
On-call is built and maintained for the sake of incident-response: its designed purpose is to ensure rapid human availability when incidents occur. The servant (on-call) points at the master (incident-response).
- cms7wyk72004ph6s8d82lhwqlSERVES →
On-call is designed for the sake of reliability: it ensures there is always responsible personnel available to respond to incidents promptly, directly serving system uptime and recovery time objectives.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 7, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC
- Content hash
- db26a171bb309c2b0e2c629480b79e1f6931bf677776efb1ce5203f18e70e19a