Systematic Debugging

Diagnose Before Repair

For a clear localized failure, use the short path: read the diagnostic and relevant change, reproduce or reuse its evidence, locate the owning cause, repair it, and verify the symptom in the existing suite/probe.

Expand investigation when the evidence does not explain the failure:

• Trace the bad value or lifetime to its source; compare relevant working code and contracts. root-cause-tracing.md describes backward tracing when the call chain is unclear.
• Instrument only the unresolved boundary, using safe summaries rather than dumping credentials or whole environments. Gather enough evidence to distinguish hypotheses.
• Test a concrete causal hypothesis with the smallest useful experiment. After a failed attempt, update the hypothesis from the result; an arbitrary attempt count does not itself require an architecture meeting.
• Use condition-based-waiting.md for readiness/timing problems. defense-in-depth.md applies when independently trusted boundaries need validation, not as a reason to duplicate checks throughout domain code.

Add a focused regression where no existing check owns the invariant. A failing production regression is fixed in production; an invalid test needs contract evidence before its expectation changes. Preserve required compatibility adapters and avoid unrelated cleanup.

Run the affected check and required project gates. Reuse evidence for unchanged inputs; widen only for relevant changes, failures, or unresolved risk. If reproduction is unavailable, state the evidence and uncertainty and continue useful investigation. Ask only for a decision or information that actually blocks progress.

For external defects, isolate the necessary handling and its removal condition with no-workarounds. Do not claim a causal fix or completion beyond the available evidence.