Systematic Debugging

• Unexpected behavior discovered during testing
• Bug reports require investigation
• Performance issues need root cause analysis

Process

1. Reproduce - Confirm the defect with a minimal reproduction
2. Hypothesize - Form theories about the root cause
3. Investigate - Systematically test hypotheses (logs, breakpoints, bisection)
4. Isolate - Narrow to the specific component/line
5. Fix - Apply targeted fix addressing root cause
6. Verify - Confirm fix resolves the issue without regression

Key Rules

• Never apply fixes without understanding the root cause
• For Strike-3/post-instrumentation handoffs, do not apply a source-code fix until you enumerate at least 3 candidate root-cause hypotheses, give each hypothesis a falsifying log line or observation, and cite concrete log evidence for the selected fix. Use seq number when present; otherwise cite timestamp, log-id, or artifact path plus the exact log line. If no proposed fix cites a specific log line or log record, mark needs-more-data.
• Use web-researcher agent for unfamiliar error patterns
• Document the investigation path for future reference
• Verify that the fix does not introduce regressions

Tool Use

Integrated into methodologies/rpikit/rpikit-implement (failure handling)