5 exercises — when and how to use passive voice correctly in API docs, system descriptions, incident timelines, and technical instructions.
Technical passive tense guide
Present habitual:"Tokens are rotated every 24 hours." (how it always works)
Present progressive:"The service is being deployed." (happening now)
Past simple:"The change was deployed at 14:32 UTC." (specific event)
Present perfect:"The issue has been resolved." (recently completed, still relevant)
Modal passive:"All fields must be validated before submission." (requirements)
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
An API documentation page describes a request lifecycle. Which sentence uses the passive voice most effectively?
Passive voice is preferred in API documentation when the actor is the system, not a human.
Technical documentation uses passive voice to: ① Emphasise the object/action rather than who does it ("is received", "is forwarded", "is returned") ② Describe system behaviour without implying a human agent ③ Maintain consistent subject focus (the request stays the subject throughout)
Option B correctly uses passive throughout: "is received by", "forwarded to", "is returned to" — the request stays the logical subject of the whole flow.
Option A is active voice — grammatically correct but less typical in API documentation where the caller doesn't need to know who forwards the request. Option C is vague ("someone" is always wrong in technical writing). Option D uses "gets" — informal passive, acceptable in casual speech but not in published docs.
Technical passive patterns: "The request is validated against the schema." "Tokens are rotated every 24 hours." "The service is deployed via GitHub Actions." "Errors are logged to CloudWatch."
2 / 5
A system status message says: "The deployment pipeline _____ (trigger) by a push to the main branch. Tests _____ (run) in parallel, and the build artifact _____ (upload) to S3 before promotion." Choose the correct passive forms.
Present simple passive for describing system behaviour and recurring processes.
When documenting how a system always behaves (not a specific past event), use present simple passive: is/are + past participle
• "The pipeline is triggered by…" — describes the general trigger mechanism • "Tests are run in parallel…" — describes the recurring execution pattern • "The artifact is uploaded to S3…" — describes the process step
Compare tenses in technical passive: • Present simple passive (habitual):"The service is deployed every Tuesday." • Present progressive passive (in progress now):"The service is being deployed." • Past simple passive (specific past event):"The service was deployed at 14:32 UTC." • Present perfect passive (recently completed):"The service has been deployed successfully."
Active vs. passive guide: Use passive when the actor is obvious, irrelevant, or the system itself. Use active when the human agent and their decision are important to communicate.
3 / 5
A ticket comment reads: "The bug _____ introduced in v2.3.1 and _____ reproduced on all environments." An engineer needs to use passive voice. Which is correct?
Past simple passive for specific past events in tickets and incident reports: was/were + past participle
When referring to a specific past occurrence in a ticket, past simple passive is standard: • "The bug was introduced in v2.3.1" — specific version, specific past event ✓ • "The regression was caused by the config change on Tuesday" ✓ • "The database was accidentally dropped during the migration" ✓
When to choose each past passive form: • Past simple passive (was introduced): Known time, specific event → standard for incident reports, bug tickets • Present perfect passive (has been introduced): Connects past to present, "at some point before now" → "A breaking change has been introduced in the latest package." • Past perfect passive (had been introduced): Before another past event → "The bug had already been reported before the release."
Options C and D are grammatically unusual: "had introduced" (active) would mean the bug was the agent doing the introducing, which makes no semantic sense.
4 / 5
Which sentence in a "Getting Started" guide uses the passive voice most appropriately for step-by-step instructions?
Passive with modal verb ("must be set") for imperative instructions — avoids the "you" pronoun in technical documentation.
Two styles are both correct for instructions: • Active imperative:"Set the API_KEY variable before starting." — direct, clear, commonly used in quick-start guides • Passive modal:"The API_KEY must be set before the application can start." — more formal, used in enterprise documentation
The passive modal form is preferred when: 1. The action is a requirement (must, should, is required to) 2. You want to avoid directly addressing the reader as "you" 3. The instruction involves multiple potential actors
Common technical documentation patterns: • "The service must be configured before deployment." • "The database should be backed up prior to running migrations." • "All API calls are required to include the Authorization header." • "This field can be omitted if default values are acceptable."
Option D ("should be setting") is wrong — passive progressive is unusable here.
5 / 5
A post-mortem reads: "The incident _____ by the on-call engineer at 02:34 UTC. Root cause _____ as a misconfigured database connection pool. The fix _____ and services _____ within 23 minutes." Choose the correct passive sequence.
Consistent past simple passive throughout incident timeline narratives.
Post-mortem narrative sections use past simple passive consistently because the entire incident is a completed, time-stamped past event: • "was acknowledged" — specific historical action ✓ • "was identified" — specific finding ✓ • "was deployed" — specific fix ✓ • "were restored" — plural services, plural subject ✓
Note the grammar point: "services" is plural → "were restored" (not "was restored").
Post-mortem passive template: "The incident was detected by [alert/system] at [time]." "The root cause was identified as [X]." "The fix was deployed at [time] and service was restored at [time]." "This class of issue has been addressed by [action item] to prevent recurrence."
The last sentence uses present perfect passive — it refers to an action taken after the incident that is still relevant now, not a specific historical timestamp.