investigate

To find the root cause of a bug from a stack trace, you collect symptoms, trace code paths, and examine recent changes. This skill applies a four-phase approach: investigate, analyze, hypothesize, and implement.

Systematic debugging of unexpected behavior requires gathering evidence, interacting with the user, and reproducing scenarios. The workflow enforces an Iron Law: no fixes without root cause, ensuring you resolve the actual fault.

Yes, you can use bash and grep to investigate errors across files. The workflow uses context-aware tooling including Bash, Grep, Glob, and Read to gather evidence, read code, and check recent changes.

Yes, the debugging workflow supports web search for unknown error messages. It uses WebSearch alongside interactive prompts to gather missing information and steer the root-cause investigation when encountering unfamiliar issues.

You should use a root-cause analysis workflow instead of directly patching code when asked to debug, fix, or investigate why something is broken. It prevents superficial fixes by tracing code paths before implementing changes.

To reproduce a failing scenario during root cause analysis, you use Bash and interactive prompts to gather evidence and verify hypotheses. The workflow collects symptoms and traces code paths before applying fixes.