# Debug

> Use when something is broken — a failing or flaky test, crash, wrong result or regression — and the root cause must be reproduced and proven before any fix. On-demand; callable mid-`implement`. NOT a feature to spec or build (that is `specify`/`implement`), NOT the lint/test gate (that is `verify`), NOT adversarial diff reading (that is `review`).

- Skill: `ericrisco/debug` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add ericrisco/debug`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/ericrisco/debug/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: ericrisco (https://skillmd.com/u/ericrisco)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/ericrisco/debug

---


# debug — find the cause before you touch the fix

`debug` is the on-demand diagnosis discipline of the rsc-sdd chain. Something is broken — a test
went red, a crash landed, a result is wrong, a regression appeared — and the strongest pull in the
room is to change code until the symptom disappears. That pull is the enemy. A symptom that vanishes
under a guessed edit usually moved; it rarely died. This skill replaces guess-and-patch with a
short, evidence-driven loop that ends only when **one confirmed cause** has been named, fixed, and
proven gone.

The one rule everything else serves: **no fix before a reproduced, isolated, confirmed cause.** If
you cannot make the bug happen on demand, you cannot know you fixed it — you can only know the
symptom stopped showing, which is not the same thing.

This is a process skill: it owns the *method*, never the instruments. The test runner, debugger,
race detector and profiler belong to whichever stack the failure lives in — pull them from the
delegation table below.

## Model tier — `heavy` (opt-in routing)

This phase's default model tier is **`heavy`** — root-cause diagnosis is deep reasoning. Routing is **off** unless `models.enabled: true` in `02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/config.yaml`. When on: resolve this phase's tier (`models.overrides` wins over `models.phases`), map it to a model via `models.tiers`, and apply per `../sdd/references/model-routing.md` — announce the switch per the accompaniment dial when it differs from the session model, and dispatch any `Task`/`parallel` subagents on that model. Routing off or no profile → honor the session model silently. Never fake a switch a tool can't make; skip routing on a one-line change.

## Read the room first (accompaniment dial)

Before diagnosing, read `02-DOCS/wiki/harness/user-profile.md` for the technical + accompaniment
level and match it; with no profile yet, assume non-technical — narrate the reasoning plainly and
never apply a behavior-changing fix without a quick confirm. The *method* never changes with the
dial — the volume does.

| Level | While diagnosing you show… | Questions you ask |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **L0** terse | the confirmed cause and the one-line fix, once found | none unless you need a missing repro detail |
| **L1** brief | the cause + one line of *why* it produced this symptom | only what you can't observe yourself (e.g. exact error text) |
| **L2** decisions | each step's finding (repro, the half that isolated it, the cause) | confirm before a fix that changes behavior beyond the bug |
| **L3** full | narrate the whole loop, teach the binary-search reasoning aloud | ask to contextualize the environment, recent changes, expectations |

## The loop — five steps, never skipped, never reordered

```text
REPRODUCE   → make the bug happen on demand. A reliable repro (or a quantified flake rate) is the
              entry ticket. No repro → you are not debugging yet, you are guessing. Capture the
              exact command, input, env, and the verbatim error/stack.
ISOLATE     → binary-search the cause. Halve the surface each step — git bisect across commits,
              comment/branch to split code paths, remove inputs until the minimal failing case
              remains. Change ONE variable at a time; note what each change does to the symptom.
HYPOTHESIZE → from the isolated evidence, state ONE falsifiable cause: "X happens because Y, and if
              so, changing Z will flip the result." A hypothesis you can't disprove isn't one.
FIX         → make the smallest change that addresses the *cause* (not the symptom). First, encode
              the bug as a failing test (it should now go red for the real reason) — then fix until
              it's green. Treat the test as the proof the cause was real.
VERIFY      → re-run the repro: symptom gone. Re-run the new test: green. Re-run the surrounding
              suite: still green (no new red). For a flake, run it enough times to show the rate
              dropped to zero. Only now is it fixed.
```

### Reproduce — the entry ticket

A bug you cannot reproduce is not a bug you can fix; it's a rumor. Pin it down:

- The **exact** invocation (command, request, UI steps), the input that triggers it, the environment
  (OS, versions, env vars, branch/commit), and the **verbatim** error + stack trace — not a
  paraphrase.
- For a **flake**, reproduction means a *rate*: run it N times, record `k/N` failures. "Intermittent"
  is a measurement to take, not a property to accept. A flake almost always means shared state, order
  dependence, a real race, time/timezone, or network — name which.
- If you genuinely cannot reproduce, that is the finding. Say so, gather more signal (logs, a failing
  CI run, the user's exact steps), and do not apply a speculative fix to a bug you can't trigger.

### Isolate — binary-search the surface

The cause is somewhere in a large space; cut it in half, repeatedly, with evidence.

- **Across history:** `git bisect` between a known-good and known-bad commit to land on the exact
  change that introduced it. Let the repro be the bisect's good/bad oracle.
- **Across code:** disable/short-circuit half the suspect path; see which half keeps the symptom.
- **Across inputs/data:** shrink the failing input to the minimal case that still fails.
- **One variable per step.** Two changes at once and you've learned nothing about either. Write down
  what each step did to the symptom — the trail *is* the diagnosis.

Delegate the stack-specific tooling (debugger, race detector, profiler, query plan) to the stack
skill below; `debug` decides *what* to halve, the stack skill provides the instrument.

### Hypothesize → Fix the cause, not the symptom

State the cause as a sentence you could be wrong about, then act on it:

- Fix the **cause**, not the symptom. A `try/except` that swallows the error, a retry that hides a
  race, a `sleep` that papers over an ordering bug, a bumped timeout — these relocate the symptom and
  leave the cause armed. If your fix doesn't reference the cause you named, it's a patch on a guess.
- **Encode the bug as a test first.** The failing test that reproduces the bug is your regression
  guard; watch it go red for the real reason, then make it green. A fix with no test means the next
  change can resurrect the bug silently.
- Keep the change **minimal**. Resist "while I'm here" refactors — they confound the verification and
  bury the one line that mattered.

### Verify — the symptom and the test, both

The fix is unproven until the original repro no longer fires **and** the new test is green **and**
the surrounding suite stayed green. For a flake, re-run enough times to show the failure rate is
zero, not merely lower. Then hand the *whole-gate* re-run (lint/type/full suite/audit) to `verify` —
that gate, not this skill, is what licenses the word "done".

## Delegating the stack tooling (don't reinvent the instruments)

`debug` owns the loop; the stack skill owns the debugger, the flake mechanics, and the profiler.

| Stack / layer | Where the instruments live | What you pull |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FastAPI / async Python | `../fastapi/references/testing.md` | `pytest -x --lf`, `pdb`/`breakpoint()`, async task/race traps, transactional-rollback fixtures to kill state bleed |
| Go services | `../go/references/testing.md` | `go test -race`, `-run`/`-count=1` to force a flake, `delve`, `pprof`, `errors.Is/As` unwrapping |
| Next.js / React | `../nextjs/references/testing.md` | Vitest `--no-isolate`/`.only`, Playwright trace viewer, RSC vs client boundary errors, hydration mismatches |
| Flutter / Dart | `../flutter/references/testing.md` | `flutter test --plain-name`, widget pump/settle timing, DevTools, golden diffs |
| Postgres / data layer | `../postgresdb/SKILL.md` | `EXPLAIN ANALYZE`, isolation-level/locking races, constraint violations, migration-order bugs |
| Security-shaped failure | `../secure-coding/SKILL.md` | auth/authz edge cases, injection, secret/leak paths surfacing as "weird" failures |

If the failure spans two stacks (a Next.js call into a FastAPI endpoint), reproduce at the boundary
first — isolate which side actually fails before you open either stack's debugger.

## Log the diagnosis (the 02-DOCS trail)

When the cause is non-obvious — a race, an order dependency, an environment-only failure, a
regression a reviewer would otherwise have to rediscover — append a short entry to
`02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/decisions.md` (append-only; create it if absent and add a row to the root
`CLAUDE.md` `## Knowledge map` under the `sdd/` topic). One entry:

```text
## YYYY-MM-DD — bug: <symptom in five words>  (feature: <slug>)
Repro      — the exact command/input that triggered it
Cause      — the ONE confirmed root cause (not the symptom)
Fix        — the minimal change + the regression test that guards it
Why missed — what let it through, so the class of bug doesn't recur
```

Skip the trivial ones (a typo'd variable). Log the cause a future debugger would pay to know.

## Anti-patterns

| Anti-pattern | Why it fails |
| --- | --- |
| "I see the likely line — let me just change it and see." | That's guess-and-patch. Reproduce first; a fix to an untriggered bug proves nothing. |
| "It's intermittent, you can't really reproduce it." | "Intermittent" is a rate to measure (k/N), not an excuse. Flakes have causes: state, order, races, time. |
| "Wrapping it in try/except makes the error go away." | You hid the symptom and left the cause armed. Fix the cause, not the crash site. |
| "Adding a sleep/retry/bigger timeout fixes the flake." | It relocates the race. Name the shared state or ordering bug; fix that. |
| "I'll fix it now and add a test later if there's time." | The bug-reproducing test IS the fix's proof. No red-for-the-right-reason test = unproven fix. |
| "I changed three things and now it works." | You can't say which mattered or why. One variable per isolate step; revert the rest. |
| "The repro's gone, ship it." | Gone how? Re-run the repro AND the new test AND the suite. Symptom-absent ≠ cause-dead. |
| "It works on my machine, so it's fixed." | Environment IS a variable. Reproduce where it actually fails (CI, prod-like) before claiming done. |
| "This bug is obvious, skip the loop." | Obvious causes are the ones that turn out to be a second bug masking the first. Run the loop. |

## Red flags — stop and re-route

- **The "bug" is a spec contradiction or unclear requirement**, not a defect → route to
  `clarify` / `analyze`; debugging won't fix an ambiguity.
- **The fix grows past the cause** (you're refactoring "while you're here") → split it out; keep the
  fix minimal and verifiable. Improvements go through `implement`.
- **You're tempted to disable, `skip`, or delete the failing test to make the suite green** → that's
  the bug winning. Never ship around a red test; diagnose it.
- **You "fixed" it but can't point to the cause you named** → you patched a symptom. Resume at
  HYPOTHESIZE.
- **The cause violates the constitution** (e.g. it only "works" by breaking a quality bar) → surface
  it; don't smuggle a violation in under the banner of a bugfix.

## Checklist (copy per bug)

```text
- [ ] REPRODUCE: exact command/input/env + verbatim error captured; repro reliable (or flake rate k/N measured)
- [ ] ISOLATE: surface halved with evidence (bisect / code split / minimal input); ONE variable per step
- [ ] HYPOTHESIZE: one falsifiable cause stated ("X because Y; changing Z flips it")
- [ ] FIX: bug encoded as a failing test (red for the RIGHT reason); smallest change to the CAUSE
- [ ] VERIFY: repro no longer fires; new test green; surrounding suite still green; flake rate → 0
- [ ] Non-obvious cause logged to 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/decisions.md
- [ ] Handed the whole-gate re-run back to verify; resumed implement where the failure interrupted it
```

## Where you are in the chain

`debug` is **on-demand**, callable from any phase — most often pulled in mid-`implement` when a test
fails for a reason you don't understand, or by `verify` when its gate reports a failure it won't
diagnose. It is not a fixed step in the line `constitution → specify → clarify → plan → tasks →
analyze → implement → verify → review → ship`.

**Next:** when the one confirmed cause is fixed and proven gone, hand back. Return to `implement` to
resume the interrupted task, or to `verify` to re-run the full gate and let evidence — not the relief
of a quiet terminal — declare the work done.