Individual skill
thinking-scientific-method
When a symptom has several plausible causes, rank falsifiable hypotheses and run the cheapest discriminating observation first; prefer least-assumptive survivors only after evidence fit.
skills/thinking-scientific-method/SKILL.md
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# Scientific Method (Hypothesis Differential)
When a symptom could come from several places, enumerate competing falsifiable hypotheses and spend the cheapest observation on the one that best discriminates among them. After each observation, keep only hypotheses that still fit, then prefer the survivor with the fewest unsupported assumptions as the working explanation.
## When to Use
- A bug, incident, or anomaly has more than one plausible cause.
- You can observe code, logs, diffs, traces, tests, configs, or data now.
- You must localize the faulty file, function, branch, config, or invariant before fixing.
- Competing explanations fit the same surface facts and you need a discriminating check.
## When NOT to Use
- Cause is already obvious from a single stack, failing test, or recent diff — fix directly.