How do I install the Mass Red Triage skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add randommonicle/mass-red-triage in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Mass Red Triage safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Mass Red Triage?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Mass Red Triage free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Mass Red Triage?

randommonicle (@randommonicle) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Mass Red Triage by randommonicle — Agent Skill

Name: Mass Red Triage
Author: randommonicle

Mass Red Triage

When a test suite goes from green to broadly red, classify before debugging. Find the first root failure (cascades multiply one fault), check for rate-limit walls, truncated runs, and environment defects, and bound the change's blast radius via the lockfile and diff before attributing blame. Triggers whenever a suite or CI run turns broadly red, or a run's failure count looks implausible in either direction. Does not fire on a single failing test or on suites already red for known, recorded reasons.

randommonicle Updated Sep 21, 2026

File contents

Mass-red triage

Seven incidents where the correct first move was classification, not debugging: 105 reds that were throttling, ~80 reds off 3 real failures, "0 failed" beside an abnormal exit that was a truncated run, and every-spec-fails-in-seconds environment defects. Hours were lost debugging code for infrastructure artefacts — and the inverse error, trusting a truncated green, is worse.

The triage, in order

Find the FIRST root failure. Worker-restart cascades multiply one fault into dozens; the timestamps and the first stack tell you which red is causal.
Check for a rate-limit wall. A provider throttle masks the one real red behind it — always re-run to completion once the wall is identified.
Check for truncation. "0 failed" beside an abnormal exit code or a short duration is not a pass; grep the counted summary lines, never trust the tail of the output.
Check for an environment defect. Every spec failing in seconds at the same module line is one broken import or service, not many bugs.
Bound the blast radius by evidence: the lockfile diff and the change diff say what could have broken; a red outside that bound is infrastructure until proven otherwise.
Run the suite twice to split flake from regression, and update a lagging branch before judging its reds — a shared-state smoke fails on whatever PR is in flight.
Instrument opaque failures: one console.error(skipReason) beats reasoning in circles about why a spec is being skipped.

What this skill does not do

It does not make checks honest (prove-it-can-fail governs whether a check can fail truthfully) and does not fix the root cause — it gets you to the right root cause without burning hours on artefacts.

Why

Mass reds are usually one fault wearing many costumes, and the costumes are expensive to debug individually. Classification first converts a day of whack-a-mole into minutes of attribution. Evidence: PropOS LESSONS_LEARNED Sessions 29, 35 (two entries), 37, 40, 42, 48, 49.

---name: mass-red-triagedescription: When a test suite goes from green to broadly red, classify before debugging. Find the first root failure (cascades multiply one fault), check for rate-limit walls, truncated runs, and environment defects, and bound the change's blast radius via the lockfile and diff before attributing blame. Triggers whenever a suite or CI run turns broadly red, or a run's failure count looks implausible in either direction. Does not fire on a single failing test or on suites already red for known, recorded reasons.---# Mass-red triageSeven incidents where the correct first move was classification, not debugging: 105 redsthat were throttling, ~80 reds off 3 real failures, "0 failed" beside an abnormal exit thatwas a truncated run, and every-spec-fails-in-seconds environment defects. Hours were lostdebugging code for infrastructure artefacts — and the inverse error, trusting a truncatedgreen, is worse.## The triage, in order1. **Find the FIRST root failure.** Worker-restart cascades multiply one fault into dozens; the timestamps and the first stack tell you which red is causal.2. **Check for a rate-limit wall.** A provider throttle masks the one real red behind it — always re-run to completion once the wall is identified.3. **Check for truncation.** "0 failed" beside an abnormal exit code or a short duration is not a pass; grep the counted summary lines, never trust the tail of the output.4. **Check for an environment defect.** Every spec failing in seconds at the same module line is one broken import or service, not many bugs.5. **Bound the blast radius by evidence**: the lockfile diff and the change diff say what could have broken; a red outside that bound is infrastructure until proven otherwise.6. **Run the suite twice** to split flake from regression, and update a lagging branch before judging its reds — a shared-state smoke fails on whatever PR is in flight.7. **Instrument opaque failures**: one `console.error(skipReason)` beats reasoning in circles about why a spec is being skipped.## What this skill does not doIt does not make checks honest (prove-it-can-fail governs whether a check can failtruthfully) and does not fix the root cause — it gets you to the right root cause withoutburning hours on artefacts.## WhyMass reds are usually one fault wearing many costumes, and the costumes are expensive todebug individually. Classification first converts a day of whack-a-mole into minutes ofattribution. Evidence: PropOS LESSONS_LEARNED Sessions 29, 35 (two entries), 37, 40, 42,48, 49.

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