Individual skill

systematic-debugging

Use when something is broken — a failing test, panic, stack trace, error log, or wrong behavior whose cause isn't obvious. Reproduce it, form a hypothesis, PROVE the cause before changing code, then make the minimal root-cause fix and guard it with a test. For deep cases, hand off to the debugger subagent.

claude/skills/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md

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# Systematic debugging

Fix the cause, not the symptom — and prove the cause before you touch code.

## The method

1. **Reproduce** — get a reliable, minimal repro (a failing test is ideal). No repro → no fix.
2. **Hypothesize** — one specific, falsifiable guess about the cause ("X is null because Y").
3. **Prove it** — instrument/log/inspect to confirm the hypothesis *before* editing. If the
   evidence contradicts it, form a new hypothesis. Don't guess-and-change.
4. **Minimal fix** — change the smallest thing that addresses the proven root cause.
5. **Verify** — re-run the repro; it passes. Run the surrounding tests; nothing regressed.
   (See `verification-before-completion`.)
6. **Guard** — add/extend a test that would have caught it, so it can't silently return.