Systematic Debugging

systematic-debugging

When to use

• A test fails and the failure is not self-explanatory
• A bug is reported (Jira, Sentry, user message) and the root cause is not obvious
• Production or staging shows unexpected behavior
• Code behaves differently than the developer expected
• A previous fix did not resolve the issue or introduced a new one
• You catch yourself thinking "let me just try changing X"

Do NOT use when:

• The failure message already names the fix (typo, missing import, obvious off-by-one) — fix it and move on
• Pure style / formatting / lint issues
• Documentation-only questions
• You need a static trace of a specific data element — route to data-flow-mapper
• You need to enumerate what a planned change will touch — route to blast-radius-analyzer

Goal

Find the root cause before changing any code. A symptom fix that papers over an unknown cause is a regression waiting to happen.

The Iron Law

NO FIX WITHOUT ROOT CAUSE. NO ROOT CAUSE WITHOUT EVIDENCE.
NO BUG MARKED FIXED WITHOUT A REGRESSION TEST.

"I think it's probably X" is not evidence. A log line, a stack trace, a diff, a reproduced failure — those are evidence. A green run after a manual edit is not a regression test — a test that fails without the fix and passes with it, is.

The 6-phase loop (the spine)

Every debug session walks these six phases in order. Treat them as a checklist — tick each box before claiming the bug fixed:

• 1. Reproduce — bug triggers on demand, smallest possible setup (Phase 1)
• 2. Minimize — smallest failing case isolated, irrelevant context stripped (Phase 1, step 2)
• 3. Hypothesize — one testable theory stated in one sentence (Phase 3)
• 4. Instrument — log / breakpoint / trace at the boundary where expected ≠ actual (Phase 2)
• 5. Fix — single, minimal change targeting the root cause (Phase 4, step 2)
• 6. Regression-test — failing test added that catches the bug returning (MANDATORY — no exception) (Phase 4, step 1 + Validation checklist)

Skipping a box (especially #2 or #6) is the single biggest cause of wasted debug time and re-opened bugs.

Procedure

Complete each phase before starting the next. Skipping ahead is the single biggest cause of wasted debug time.

Phase 1 — Reproduce

Goal: make the failure happen on demand, with the smallest possible setup.

1. Read the error message, stack trace, and logs in full. Note the exact file, line, and the chain of calls above it.
2. Identify the minimum input, state, or sequence of actions that triggers the failure. If it is intermittent — gather more data before guessing.
3. Capture the exact reproduction as a command or a test. Prefer a failing test (see test-driven-development) — it turns Phase 4 into a verified fix.

If you cannot reproduce, you do not yet understand the bug. Stop. Add logging, re-run, collect more evidence.

Phase 2 — Isolate

Goal: locate the failure in a single component, layer, or call site.

1. Bisect the surface area. What is the smallest code path that still fails? Turn off/skip/mock adjacent features to narrow the window.

2. For multi-component systems (frontend → API → service → DB, or CI → build → deploy), log at each boundary:

   • What enters the component
   • What leaves the component
   • What config/env the component actually sees

   The goal is not to fix — it is to answer "which boundary is the one where expected ≠ actual?".

3. Check recent changes: git log, git blame on the failing line, recent dependency updates, config edits, infra changes.

4. Consult memory for prior matches. Via memory-access:

   agent-config memory:lookup \
     --types incident-learnings,historical-patterns \
     --key <error class> --key <failing path> \
     --limit 3
   

   A matching incident-learning may already name the root cause, the fix, and the regression test. A matching historical-pattern narrows the hypothesis space before Phase 3. Cite matching ids in the Phase 1–4 evidence trail.

5. Trace backwards from the symptom. If null arrives at line 42 — where does the value originate? Walk up the call stack until the origin is found. Fix at origin, not at line 42.

Phase 3 — Hypothesize

Goal: one testable hypothesis at a time, rejected or confirmed by evidence.

1. State the hypothesis in one sentence: "The failure happens because X, which I can confirm by observing Y."
2. Design the smallest possible experiment that either confirms or rejects the hypothesis. One variable at a time.
3. Run it. Read the output.
4. If confirmed → Phase 4. If rejected → back to Phase 2 with the new information, then form a new hypothesis.

If three hypotheses in a row fail, stop. You do not understand the system well enough yet, or the architecture is the problem itself — see "Three-strike rule" below.

Phase 4 — Verify the fix

Goal: the fix resolves the root cause, not just the observed symptom.

1. Write or update a failing test that reproduces the bug (if not already done in Phase 1).
2. Apply a single, minimal fix targeting the root cause. No bundled refactors, no "while I'm here".
3. Re-run the reproduction — the failure is gone.
4. Re-run the surrounding test suite — nothing adjacent has turned red.
5. Read the output carefully — no new warnings, deprecations, or silent retries that would mask the same bug recurring.

If the fix does not work, do not stack a second fix on top. Go back to Phase 2, treat the failure as new evidence.

Three-strike rule

If you have tried three fixes and the bug is still present:

• Stop attempting fixes.
• Re-read phases 1–3 — something about the root cause is wrong.
• Ask explicitly: is this bug in the code, or in the architecture / design that keeps producing this class of bug?
• Surface the question to the user. Do not attempt fix #4 silently.

Debug micro-loop — one test, one fix, one re-run

Tactical complement to the 6-phase loop, for failing test suites, broken builds, and regressions. Each lap completes in one turn. Pairs with context-hygiene § Read-Loop Detection — if you catch yourself reading-without-acting, run this loop.

1. Pick ONE failing test. Run it isolated: npx vitest run path/to/single.test.ts, pytest tests/x.py::test_y, phpunit --filter test_y. Full suite between laps is forbidden — it drowns the signal.
2. Read the assertion, not the file. expected X to be Y names the gap. Hypothesis comes from the error, not a hunch.
3. Source first, test second. Shape mismatch → read the producer (route, function, component) once, then align the test (or fix the producer if it's the regression — Phase 2 decides which).
4. Use git as a diagnostic. Regression in code that worked → git log --oneline -- <file> → git show <sha> -- <file>. The before/after diff names the dropped logic faster than re-reading.
5. One edit, then re-run the same single test. Green → next failing test. Red → step 2 with the new assertion. Never edit two unrelated things before re-running.
6. Full suite at the end, not between laps. It is the gate, not the feedback loop.

Failure-signature triage — same taxonomy as context-hygiene § The 3-Failure Rule. The failure signature is the same target + same error class (same failing test with the same assertion, same lint rule id, same build error). The same failure signature twice → stop and pivot — do not spend the next lap on a near-identical retry; a repeated identical signature means the hypothesis is wrong, not under-applied. A new error signature each attempt = progress and the counter continues. And the hard-blocker classes (missing credentials, permission denied, spend/quota/rate limit, external-service 5xx) skip retries entirely — surface on first occurrence; another lap cannot fix them.

Anti-patterns this loop prevents:

• Editing source to make tests pass when the test was wrong (or vice versa) — step 3 forces "read producer first".
• Drowning in full-suite output every lap — step 1 pins one file.
• Three reads in a row without a fix — step 5 forces an edit per lap.
• Guessing at mock / payload shape — step 3 forces reading the route handler or component the mock substitutes for.

Gathering evidence — cheap tools first

Prefer the cheapest tool that resolves the question. A dd() at the right line beats five minutes of IDE breakpoints.

Known failure signature? If the symptom has a recognisable shape — a tool/agent loop, HTTP 429, ECONNREFUSED, ENOENT, timeout/hang, OOM, flaky test, works-locally-fails-in-CI, or repeated attempts at a tool that is not available — consult the symptom → cause → first-check lookup in failure-signatures to shortcut Phase 2 (Isolate) with the highest-probability first check. Each row carries a stable id you can cite, and a discrimination drill that produces its documented symptom. It supplements the loop; it does not replace it.

Condition-based waiting (intermittent bugs)

Intermittent tests and race conditions usually stem from waiting on time instead of on a condition. Replace sleep(100) or setTimeout(r, 100) with an explicit wait-for:

async function waitFor<T>(
  check: () => T | undefined | null | false,
  label: string,
  timeoutMs = 5_000,
): Promise<T> {
  const start = Date.now();
  while (true) {
    const result = check();
    if (result) return result;
    if (Date.now() - start > timeoutMs) {
      throw new Error(`Timeout waiting for ${label} after ${timeoutMs}ms`);
    }
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 10));
  }
}

Only use an arbitrary timeout when the timing itself is the contract (debounce, throttle) — and add a comment explaining why the exact value.

Output format

When reporting debug findings to the user:

1. Symptom — what was observed (one sentence + failure message)
2. Reproduction — the command or test that triggers it
3. Root cause — what is actually wrong and where
4. Evidence — the log line, stack frame, or diff that proves it
5. Fix — the minimal change
6. Regression test — the test that catches this bug returning

Knowledge capture (mistake_made event)

If the root cause traces to a agents/knowledge/ page that was followed while implementing (a documented convention was wrong, an API shape page was stale, a procedure was incomplete), append a mistake_made event to the knowledge intake — never rewrite the page mid-task (see knowledge-pages):

npx tsx node_modules/@event4u/agent-config/src/scripts/emit_knowledge_event.ts \
    --type mistake_made \
    --error-category "<one or two words>" \
    --context-source "<agents/knowledge/... path, or 'null' if no page was followed>" \
    --correction "<what the fix actually was>" \
    --recurrence-key "<stable slug for this class of mistake>"

Verify the append landed: check the command's exit code (0 = appended), then grep <recurrenceKey> agents/knowledge/intake/events-*.jsonl finds the new line.

Live contradiction exception. If the followed page is DEMONSTRABLY wrong right now (observed reality ≠ documented claim, not a one-off), this is the hybrid immediate-fix case instead — surface the proposed correction and ask before continuing (see knowledge-pages § Contested entries). Approved → isolated fix commit. Declined → npx tsx node_modules/@event4u/agent-config/src/scripts/append_contested.ts on that page, then still emit the context_stale event above it for the consolidation pass.

Gotchas

• Reading half a stack trace and jumping to a fix — the actual cause is usually two or three frames above the one you read.
• "It works on my machine" — you are running a different env than the bug report. Reproduce with the exact conditions from the report.
• Adding a retry or sleep to mask an intermittent failure — this hides the race condition, it does not fix it. Use condition-based waiting.
• Fixing the first line that throws, when the bad value came from somewhere up the call chain. Trace backwards to the origin.
• "The fix works, the test is just flaky" — flaky tests are bugs in the test or the code. Diagnose them, do not retry-until-green.
• Turning a failing assertion into a softer one ("maybe it's 2 or 3 retries, let's accept both") to make it pass.
• Bundling a bug fix with a refactor — if the test goes red again you cannot tell which change broke it.

Red flags — STOP and restart from Phase 1

• "Let me just try X and see if it works"
• "I don't fully understand it, but this probably fixes it"
• Proposing a fix without having reproduced the bug
• Bundling multiple changes in one attempt ("fixing this and refactoring that")
• "It's probably a race condition, let me add a sleep"
• A green test run after changes, without having first seen it red
• "This looks similar to bug X, so it's the same fix"
• Suppressing a log, warning, or exception instead of tracing its source
• Three consecutive read-only turns (only view / grep / git log / codebase-retrieval, no edits, no test runs) — trips the Read-Loop Detection 15-minute warning. See context-hygiene § Read-Loop Detection and run the Debug micro-loop instead: one failing test → read the assertion → read the producer once → one edit → re-run that single test.

Do NOT

• Do NOT propose a fix before reproducing the bug
• Do NOT change two things at once in a single experiment
• Do NOT silence a warning, failing test, or noisy log as a "fix"
• Do NOT mark a bug as fixed without a regression test
• Do NOT attempt fix #4 after three failed fixes — surface the pattern instead

When to hand over to another skill

• Writing the regression test → test-driven-development
• Stepping through PHP with Xdebug → php-debugging
• Playwright / E2E test failures → playwright-testing
• PHPStan / Rector / ECS output → quality-tools
• Verifying the fix is complete before claiming done → verify-completion-evidence

Validation checklist

Before declaring a bug fixed:

• 6-phase loop — all six boxes (Reproduce → Minimize → Hypothesize → Instrument → Fix → Regression-test) ticked
• The failure was reproduced before any code changed
• The root cause is named explicitly, not "probably"
• Evidence (log, trace, diff) supports the named root cause
• Regression test added — MANDATORY: a test that fails without the fix and passes with it. No exception. "Manual reproduction confirmed gone" is not a regression test
• The fix is minimal and targets the root cause, not the symptom
• The regression test now passes
• Adjacent tests still pass
• No warning or suppressed output hides a recurrence