Systematic debug
Skill IrfanSadiqRahat/constellation/methodology/systematic-debug
200 role-specific AI agents across 20 teams with typed artifact pipelines, 14 methodology skills, and 15 pre-baked team formations. The virtual engineering org for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI.
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What its author says it does
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Five-phase root cause process with role-aware diagnostics. Bisect, minimize, hypothesize, verify, document.
SKILL.md
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systematic-debug
Five phases (in order, no skipping)
1. Reproduce — observable
A bug not reproducible is a hypothesis, not a bug.
- Minimal repro (delta-debugging if needed)
- Environment captured (versions, env vars, data state)
- Steps recorded so a peer can re-run
2. Isolate — narrow blast radius
- Git bisect for regressions
- Binary search on input space (works for data bugs)
- Disable subsystems until repro disappears
3. Hypothesize — single hypothesis at a time
- State the hypothesis as a falsifiable claim
- Predict an observation that would confirm or refute
- Run one experiment
4. Verify root cause — not symptom
A root cause is one whose removal makes the bug impossible, not just absent. If the same input could produce the same bug via a different path, you found a symptom.
5. Document — RootCauseReport
title: <bug>
severity: 1 | 2 | 3
repro: <minimal steps>
investigation_log: [<hypothesis, experiment, result, ts>]
root_cause: <statement>
mechanism: <how the cause leads to the bug>
fix: <change>
prevention:
- test added: <link>
- lint rule: <link>
- design change: <link>
adjacent_risks: <where else this class of bug could live>
Role-aware diagnostics
| role | diagnostic toolkit |
|---|---|
react-specialist | React DevTools, <Profiler>, source maps, useDebugValue |
frontend-perf-engineer | RUM, traces, performance.mark, INP attribution |
backend-architect | distributed tracing, exemplars, db EXPLAIN, profilers |
postgres-specialist | pg_stat_statements, EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS), auto_explain |
data-architect | lineage trace, sample-then-diff, freshness check |
ai-engineer | trace per request, eval bucket diff, prompt-version pin |
incident-commander | timeline, comms log, dashboards as evidence |
security-architect | tamper-evident logs, IOC search, traffic capture |
Forbidden moves
- "It probably works now, retry" — confirmation bias, often hides flakiness
- Multiple changes per experiment — can't attribute cause
- "Works on my machine" closure — not closure
- Fixing the symptom and moving on without root-cause analysis
Why this skill is opinionated
- Five phases — explicit "isolate via bisect" phase
- Role-aware toolkit per role — Postgres bugs ≠ React bugs ≠ AI hallucinations
- Mechanism field, not just root cause
- Adjacent risks surfaced
- Prevention is tracked as required output