Diagnose
A bug is a piece of work whose problem statement nobody confirmed, and debugging fails the way all work fails: at whichever stage got skipped. Read code until a cause feels plausible, fix that, call it done when nothing visibly objects — that is idea straight to implementation at minute scale.
The concept: the six geniuses, run at minute scale — no ceremony, no work file, the same order.
- Wonder — the code confirms the problem. A bug's confirmation is a red reproduction: one command, run here, that shows the symptom — red while the bug lives, green when it dies. Until it exists nothing is confirmed and no theory has standing; catching yourself building one first is the stop. A flaky symptom is confirmed by rate — raise the reproduction until signal beats noise. Then shrink it: cut inputs, config and callers one at a time, re-running after each cut, until everything left is load-bearing. The wrong bug reproduced is the wrong problem confirmed.
- Invention and Discernment — hypotheses are options, and options earn survival. More than one before testing any: a single hypothesis explored is anchoring with extra steps. Each names its prediction — "if this is the cause, that change turns the reproduction green" — because a hypothesis that predicts nothing can only be believed. Attack in rank order, one variable at a time; a dead hypothesis gets its one-line kill-reason, so nobody walks that path twice.
- Enablement and Tenacity — red to green, and green is fresh. The surviving hypothesis becomes a fix proven by the reproduction it was born from, and a regression test at a real seam where one exists — where none does, that absence is a finding about the design, recorded as one line in
.genius/BACKLOG.md, never a license to skip. Close out clean: the rerun fresh, the scaffolding gone, the cause stated where the fix is recorded — a fix whose cause is unstated gets un-fixed by the next confident refactor. What the hunt disproved on the way is corrected where it was written (errata skill).
Three failed fixes impeach the problem statement. Back to Wonder — question the reproduction, and what it silently assumes.
1---2name: diagnose3description: Debugging as the six geniuses at minute scale — the bug confirmed by a red reproduction before any theory, hypotheses plural with kill-reasons before any fix, the fix proven by a fresh green rerun. Use when something is broken, throwing, failing, flaky, or slow, or when the user asks to debug or diagnose.4---56# Diagnose78A bug is a piece of work whose problem statement nobody confirmed, and debugging fails the way all work fails: at whichever stage got skipped. Read code until a cause feels plausible, fix that, call it done when nothing visibly objects — that is idea straight to implementation at minute scale.910The concept: **the six geniuses, run at minute scale — no ceremony, no work file, the same order.**1112- **Wonder — the code confirms the problem.** A bug's confirmation is a red reproduction: one command, run here, that shows the symptom — red while the bug lives, green when it dies. Until it exists nothing is confirmed and no theory has standing; catching yourself building one first is the stop. A flaky symptom is confirmed by rate — raise the reproduction until signal beats noise. Then shrink it: cut inputs, config and callers one at a time, re-running after each cut, until everything left is load-bearing. The wrong bug reproduced is the wrong problem confirmed.13- **Invention and Discernment — hypotheses are options, and options earn survival.** More than one before testing any: a single hypothesis explored is anchoring with extra steps. Each names its prediction — "if this is the cause, that change turns the reproduction green" — because a hypothesis that predicts nothing can only be believed. Attack in rank order, one variable at a time; a dead hypothesis gets its one-line kill-reason, so nobody walks that path twice.14- **Enablement and Tenacity — red to green, and green is fresh.** The surviving hypothesis becomes a fix proven by the reproduction it was born from, and a regression test at a real seam where one exists — where none does, that absence is a finding about the design, recorded as one line in `.genius/BACKLOG.md`, never a license to skip. Close out clean: the rerun fresh, the scaffolding gone, the cause stated where the fix is recorded — a fix whose cause is unstated gets un-fixed by the next confident refactor. What the hunt disproved on the way is corrected where it was written (`errata` skill).1516Three failed fixes impeach the problem statement. Back to Wonder — question the reproduction, and what it silently assumes.
donald-ada