silent-failure-hunter

Catching silent failures requires auditing try/catch blocks, error callbacks, and fallback paths to flag swallowed exceptions and empty handlers. This skill reviews code to ensure hidden failures are logged precisely and receive actionable user messaging instead of disappearing unnoticed.

Reviewing fallback logic involves evaluating whether default values, retries, and alternate paths are explicit, justified, and safe. This skill audits fallback behavior to identify unjustified defaults that mask failures and ensures error paths propagate issues correctly.

Checking error callbacks involves auditing failure paths for actionable user messages instead of vague logs or hidden state changes. This skill verifies that exceptions are handled specifically and that failures produce clear, actionable messaging for users.

You can audit retry logic and optional chaining used where explicit handling is required. This skill evaluates retry paths and optional chaining syntax to detect swallowed exceptions, inadequate reporting, and unjustified fallback behavior that hides failures.

You should run a silent failure audit after changing API calls, file operations, event handlers, or retry logic. This skill catches errors that would otherwise disappear unnoticed in code paths where problems are easy to miss but expensive to debug later.

Error handling continues without reporting when catch blocks swallow exceptions or use unjustified fallback behavior. This skill flags empty catch blocks, swallowed exceptions, and error handlers that continue without proper logging or specific exception handling.