What problem does it solve?
This Skill prevents symptom-based patching by guiding systematic investigation to identify and confirm the precise root cause of bugs, crashes, failing tests, performance regressions, and unexpected behavior.
Core Features & Use Cases
- Four-Phase Investigation: Move through investigation, analysis, hypothesis testing, and implementation in a disciplined order.
- Evidence-Based Diagnosis: Reproduce issues, inspect environments, trace data flow, analyze logs, rank hypotheses, and validate causes with falsifiable tests.
- Production-Grade Resolution: Require regression tests, minimal fixes, target-environment verification, root-cause documentation, monitoring review, and escalation after three unsuccessful fix attempts.
- Use Case: When an API intermittently returns errors after a deployment, use this Skill to compare environments, trace the request flow, test timing and dependency hypotheses, confirm the root cause, and implement a verified regression-tested fix.
Quick Start
Use the debugger skill to investigate this failing test, identify and confirm its root cause, and propose the smallest verified fix.