/systematic-debugging

name: systematic-debugging
description: Structured debugging methodology using hypothesis-driven investigation, log analysis, and bisection to isolate and resolve defects.
allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob, WebFetch, WebSearch, Agent, AskUserQuestion
graph:
  domains: [domain:software-engineering]
  skillAreas: [skill-area:agentic-loops, skill-area:orchestration-loop]
  workflows: [workflow:feature-development]
  topics: [topic:developer-experience]
  roles: [role:tech-lead, role:backend-engineer]

• Unexpected behavior discovered during testing
• Bug reports require investigation
• Performance issues need root cause analysis

Process

1. **Reproduce** - Confirm the defect with a minimal reproduction 2. **Hypothesize** - Form theories about the root cause 3. **Investigate** - Systematically test hypotheses (logs, breakpoints, bisection) 4. **Isolate** - Narrow to the specific component/line 5. **Fix** - Apply targeted fix addressing root cause 6. **Verify** - Confirm fix resolves the issue without regression

Key Rules

• Never apply fixes without understanding the root cause
• For Strike-3/post-instrumentation handoffs, do not apply a source-code fix

until you enumerate at least 3 candidate root-cause hypotheses, give each hypothesis a falsifying log line or observation, and cite concrete log evidence for the selected fix. Use seq number when present; otherwise cite timestamp, log-id, or artifact path plus the exact log line. If no proposed fix cites a specific log line or log record, mark `needs-more-data`.

• Use web-researcher agent for unfamiliar error patterns
• Document the investigation path for future reference
• Verify that the fix does not introduce regressions

Tool Use

Integrated into `methodologies/rpikit/rpikit-implement` (failure handling)