Follow an outage or a deploy on the Lock Screen
A Live Activity is an iPhone feature that keeps an event in progress on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, updating until the event ends, for up to eight hours. Duskwatch is an independent iPhone app for DigitalOcean, in development; it uses Live Activities to follow an alert until it recovers, a deploy or power action until it finishes and a DigitalOcean incident until it is resolved, and lets you answer an alert without opening the app.
Updated
Follow an alert until it recovers
At 02:14 you open "web-01 is off" from its notification. From then on, the outage sits on your Lock Screen with a running timer, so a glance tells you whether it is over. Tapping "I'm on it" in the app starts one too. Browsing never does, and each team has at most one.
web-01 is off · 12 min
You're on it
Recovered after 23 min
It shows the alert, or "3 alerts" with up to three names, and who is on it: "You're on it", "Someone's on it" or "Nobody's on it yet". It adds a note when DigitalOcean reports an incident there, and "Snoozed until 08:30" after a snooze. While nobody has acknowledged it, it carries one button, "I'm on it". When the alert recovers it ends with "Recovered after 23 min", which replaces the recovery notification on that iPhone. If updates stop arriving, it says "Not updated since 02:14" instead of pretending all is well.
"I'm on it" and "Snooze 30 min" on a notification work in the background once the iPhone is unlocked, and from a paired Apple Watch; "I'm on it" stops reminders on every device of the account. If the alert server is out of reach, a notification says "Couldn't reach Duskwatch. Open the app to finish."
Deploys and power actions, from Queued to Live
After you confirm a redeploy, rollback, revert, restart, power action or snapshot with a swipe and Face ID, its progress follows you to the Lock Screen: "Redeploy · api-prod", stepping through Queued, Building, Deploying and Live, or Running and Done for a droplet. A failure reads "Failed after 4 min". It has no buttons, so it can never cancel anything.
With alerts on, the alert server follows that one operation with its read-only permission, at most 40 requests for a deploy and 30 for a droplet action, inside the team's budget. Without alerts, nothing follows it in the background, and a stale one says "Open Duskwatch to update".
Droplet actions are asynchronous: the request returns before the action completes, and its status is in-progress, completed or errored.
DigitalOcean API reference: droplet actions (external link), verified
While a droplet action is unfinished, the droplet is locked and a new action for it may be refused.
DigitalOcean API reference: droplet actions (external link), verified
doctl lists an app's deployments with their phase and progress.
doctl reference: apps list-deployments (external link), verified
Follow a DigitalOcean incident, iOS 18 and later
An open incident's card on the Status screen has "Follow on Lock Screen". The Lock Screen then shows "DigitalOcean incident", its status and impact, the products and regions it affects, and a timer since it began. In the Dynamic Island it shrinks to the impact symbol and the status word. It never shows the incident's text.
DigitalOcean incident
Identified · Major
Droplets, App Platform
FRA1, NYC3
Following asks the alert server for the incident's public broadcast channel, with no identifier, and nothing is stored. Apple then delivers updates on that public channel. Once DigitalOcean resolves it, it reads "Resolved" with how long it lasted, a notification says "DigitalOcean resolved an incident you follow.", and it leaves the Lock Screen 15 minutes later. "Stop following" ends it sooner.
| Alert | Deploy or power action | DigitalOcean incident | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starts | You open an urgent alert from its notification, or tap "I'm on it" in the app | You confirm the action with a swipe and Face ID | You tap "Follow on Lock Screen" on its card |
| Shows | The alert, a timer, who is on it, snooze and incident notes | The action and resource, its phase and a timer | Status, impact, products, regions and a timer |
| Button | "I'm on it", until someone is | None | None |
| Ends | On recovery, sign-out, turning alerts off or the setting off | When it is live, done, failed or canceled | When it is resolved, or you stop following |
Ask Siri: "Is my stack OK?"
Siri and the Shortcuts app know five phrases: "Is my stack OK in Duskwatch", "Duskwatch status", "Any open alerts in Duskwatch", "I'm on it in Duskwatch" and "Open alerts in Duskwatch". Answers come from what is already on the iPhone, after unlock, with the time they were true:
- "As of 02:14, 1 alert open. web-01 is off. You're on it."
- "As of 02:14, nothing needs attention."
- When the data is old: "Duskwatch last checked at 02:14. Open Duskwatch to refresh."
App Shortcuts are available as soon as someone installs the app, in Siri, Spotlight, the Shortcuts app and the Action button, with no setup.
Apple developer docs: App Shortcuts (external link), verified
What the Lock Screen shows, and what it never does
A Lock Screen can be read by anyone near your phone. So an activity never shows a team name, and the server sends it IDs and codes, never names: your iPhone fills in "web-01" itself. Activities appear on the Lock Screen, in the Dynamic Island and StandBy, and in the Smart Stack of a paired Apple Watch.
A Live Activity can be active for up to eight hours, then stays on the Lock Screen for up to four more, twelve hours at most.
Apple developer docs: displaying live data with Live Activities (external link), verified
Apple's guidelines advise against showing sensitive information in a Live Activity, because casual observers can see it.
Apple Human Interface Guidelines: Live Activities (external link), verified
Three switches in Settings
- "Follow alerts on the Lock Screen": "When you open an alert from its notification or tap I'm on it, until it recovers."
- "Follow deploys and power actions": "After you confirm a redeploy, rollback or power action, until it finishes."
- "Names on Lock Screen": when off, generic text replaces resource names on the Lock Screen, in the widget and in Live Activities.
All three are on from the start and change only what this iPhone displays, so they are plain switches, with no swipe. The alert server keeps the update address of an activity for at most 12 hours.
What Duskwatch doesn't do here
- No activity starts on its own: you start one by opening an alert, confirming an action or following an incident.
- No team names on the Lock Screen, and no resource names if you turn them off.
- No DigitalOcean actions from a Live Activity, Siri or Apple Watch: no cancel, roll back or reboot buttons.
- No Apple Watch app: the watch gets notification actions and the Smart Stack.
Questions
When does a Live Activity start?
When you open an urgent alert from its notification, tap "I'm on it" in the app, confirm a redeploy, rollback or power action, or tap "Follow on Lock Screen" on a DigitalOcean incident. Browsing the app never starts one.
Can I acknowledge an alert from my Apple Watch?
Yes. "I'm on it" and "Snooze 30 min" work from the notification on a paired Apple Watch, without opening the app on the iPhone.
Can I follow a DigitalOcean incident on my Lock Screen?
Yes, on iOS 18 and later: tap "Follow on Lock Screen" on its card in Status. Its status, impact, products and regions stay on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island until DigitalOcean resolves it.
Does the Lock Screen show my team or resource names?
Never the team. Resource names appear unless you turn off "Names on Lock Screen", and they are filled in on your iPhone, not sent by the server.