Systematic debugging

Systematic Debugging

Adapted from the MIT-licensed superpowers plugin by Jesse Vincent. See NOTICE.md.

Overview

Core principle: find the root cause before attempting a fix. A fix aimed at a symptom without a confirmed cause is a guess, and guesses are how debugging sessions run for hours without progress.

The Loop

One step at a time. Do not skip ahead to a fix because the cause "seems obvious."

1. Reproduce reliably. Trigger the bug on demand, with exact steps. If you can't reproduce it consistently, gather more evidence before doing anything else — don't guess at a fix for a bug you can't summon.
2. Minimise the reproduction. Strip away everything not required to trigger it: unrelated setup, unrelated input, unrelated code paths. A smaller reproduction narrows where the cause can be.
3. State a hypothesis that predicts something observable. "I think X is the cause because Y, and if true then Z will happen when I do W." A hypothesis that can't fail — one with no observable prediction — is not a hypothesis, it's a guess wearing a hypothesis's clothes.
4. Instrument to test it. Add logging, a debugger breakpoint, or a targeted probe that checks the prediction from step 3. Run it once. Read the result against what you predicted, not against what you hoped.
5. Fix the confirmed root cause. Not the nearest symptom, not a defensive check that papers over it — the thing step 4 confirmed.
6. Add a regression test that fails without the fix. Apply the test-driven-development skill: write the test, confirm it fails for the bug's actual symptom, then confirm the fix makes it pass. Skipping this step means nothing stops the bug from coming back.

One change at a time

Change exactly one thing between test runs. Two simultaneous changes make the result uninterpretable: if the bug clears, you don't know which change fixed it or whether they cancelled each other out; if it doesn't, you don't know which change to keep. This holds even under time pressure — especially under time pressure, since that's when bundling changes feels fastest and costs the most.

No speculative or shotgun fixes

A speculative fix — "try changing X and see if it helps" — is prohibited. So is a shotgun fix — changing several plausible-looking things at once in the hope that one of them works. Both skip the hypothesis step, and both leave you unable to explain afterward why the bug is gone, which means you can't tell whether it's actually gone or just not currently triggering.

Every fix must trace back to a hypothesis that was tested and confirmed in step 4.

Discard disproved hypotheses

If instrumentation doesn't confirm the prediction, the hypothesis is wrong. Discard it and form a new one from what the evidence actually showed — don't patch the old hypothesis with an exception to keep it alive ("X is the cause, except in this case where it's also Y"). A hypothesis that needs a growing list of exceptions to survive contact with evidence isn't converging on the root cause; it's accumulating epicycles around the wrong one.

When the loop itself is failing

Roughly three fixes in, if each one clears the reported symptom but surfaces new breakage in a different place, the problem isn't a wrong hypothesis — it's coupling the design didn't anticipate, and the loop is the wrong tool for it. A fourth local fix will very likely repeat the pattern: fix here, break there. When you see this shape, stop fixing, name the architectural problem in one sentence, and raise it rather than running another iteration of the loop.

Red flags — stop and go back to reproduce

• "Quick fix for now, investigate later"
• "Just try changing X and see if it works"
• "I don't fully understand it, but this might work"
• "Let me change a few things and rerun the tests"
• Proposing a fix before the reproduction is confirmed
• Patching a hypothesis instead of discarding it

Any of these mid-task means: stop, go back to reproduce, and continue from there.

Applying this

Use this loop for any bug, failing test, or unexpected behavior before proposing a fix — a tm-implementer working a task, or inline work in the main session. Once the loop reaches step 6, hand off to the test-driven-development skill for the RED/GREEN discipline on the regression test itself. Before claiming the bug is fixed, the phase-gate skill is where that claim is checked against a recorded PASS rather than taken on your word.