Individual skill

systematic-debugging

4-phase root cause analysis: observe, hypothesize, verify, fix. Enforces investigation before any code changes. Emergency stop after 2 failed fixes. Prevents shotgun debugging and fix cascades.

skills/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md

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# /systematic-debugging — Root Cause Before Fix

## Orientation

**Use when:** root cause is unknown and premature fixes keep failing -- enforces observe -> hypothesize -> verify before touching code.
**Don't use when:** root cause is already known (use /marshal to implement the fix); the bug is shallow and the stack trace is enough (use /do).

## Protocol

### Phase 1: OBSERVATION & REPRODUCTION

1. Read the error message, stack trace, or bug description
2. Reproduce the issue:
   - If it's a type error: run typecheck and read the full error