Individual skill

investigate

Systematically investigate bugs, test failures, build errors, performance issues, or unexpected behavior by cycling through characterize-isolate-hypothesize-test steps. Use when the user asks to "investigate this bug", "debug this", "figure out why this fails", "find the root cause", "why is this broken", "troubleshoot this", "diagnose the issue", "what's causing this error", "look into this failure", "why is this test failing", or "track down this bug".

codex/skills/investigate/SKILL.md

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Last checked: Nov 7, 2026

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Repository stars (not skill ratings): 419
Repository last updated: Nov 8, 2026
License: MIT

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SKILL.mdcore · 13,149 bytes
SKILL.mdcore · 13,149 bytes
SKILL.mdcore · 13,149 bytes
references/problem-type-playbooks.mddoc · 3,622 bytes

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# Investigate

Systematic methodology for finding the root cause of bugs, failures, and unexpected behavior. Cycle through characterize-isolate-hypothesize-test steps, with oracle escalation for hard problems. Diagnose the root cause — do not apply fixes.

Optional: `$ARGUMENTS` contains the problem description or error message.

## Step 1: Characterize

Gather the symptom and establish what is actually happening:

1. **Collect evidence** — error message, stack trace, test output, log entries, or user description of unexpected behavior
2. **Classify the problem type**:

| Signal | Type |