Team Setup Guide
Configure teams, WIP limits, Slack alerts, and DORA goals after connecting GitHub.
Overview
After connecting GitHub and seeing your first deploy risk scores, the next step is configuring your team structure so Koalr can surface team-level metrics, alerts, and benchmarks. This guide walks through the recommended setup sequence for teams of 5–50 engineers.
Step 1: Create your team
Navigate to Teams and click Create Team.
Fill in:
- Team name — matches the name you use internally (e.g., "Platform", "Payments API")
- GitHub team (optional) — if your org uses GitHub Teams, Koalr can sync membership automatically
- Members — search and select from your connected contributors
Alternatively, use Import Teams to pull team structure directly from GitHub Teams, Jira projects, or Linear teams.
Step 2: Set WIP limits
Navigate to WIP Limits and click Edit next to your team.
Recommended starting limits:
| Team size | PR limit |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | 4 |
| 4–6 | 7 |
| 7–10 | 10 |
| 10+ | Split into sub-teams |
After 4 weeks, check your Cycle Time trend. If cycle time is still high despite WIP limits, tighten the limit by 20%.
Step 3: Connect Slack
Navigate to Settings → Integrations → Slack and click Connect.
Once connected, configure which alerts fire to which channel in Settings → Notifications:
| Alert | Recommended channel |
|---|---|
| High/critical deploy risk PRs | #engineering-alerts |
| WIP limit exceeded | #team-standup |
| Daily standup digest | #team-standup |
| DORA weekly summary | #engineering-metrics |
| Well-being survey | #team-wellbeing (or DM) |
Step 4: Set DORA goals
Navigate to DORA Metrics and click Set Goals.
If you're just starting, use current state as baseline and set a 3-month goal:
| Metric | Current → 3-month goal |
|---|---|
| Deployment frequency | Measure first, then improve by 20% |
| Lead time | Measure first, then reduce by 25% |
| Change failure rate | < 15% (regardless of current) |
| MTTR | < 1 hour (High tier) |
Koalr will send a weekly Slack message showing progress against each goal.
Step 5: Configure deploy risk thresholds
Navigate to Deploy Risk (under Delivery section) and review the default thresholds:
- Block threshold: 75 (PRs scored ≥ 75 fail the GitHub Check Run)
- Alert threshold: 50 (PRs scored ≥ 50 trigger a Slack alert)
If your team is new to deploy risk scoring, start with the defaults for 2 weeks before tightening. Lowering the block threshold increases friction — only do this once you have team buy-in.
Step 6: Enable the Daily Standup Digest
Navigate to Standup and click Configure Digest:
- Select your team
- Select your Slack channel
- Set delivery time to 5 minutes before your standup
- Set timezone to match your team
The digest auto-generates from the previous session's GitHub activity — no one needs to update anything manually.
Step 7: Review CODEOWNERS coverage
Navigate to CODEOWNERS and click Run Audit.
The audit identifies:
- Repos without a CODEOWNERS file
- Stale entries pointing to departed team members
- High-churn files with no ownership
Fix the top 3–5 gaps first. Even partial CODEOWNERS coverage is better than none.
What's next?
- Deploy Risk — deep dive on how the 32 signals are computed
- Cycle Time — understand where work slows down in your pipeline
- DORA Metrics — DORA benchmarks and how to move between tiers
- WIP Limits — why limiting WIP improves delivery speed
- CODEOWNERS — governance and drift detection