debug-method

A four-phase method for investigating bugs, failed tests, and other unexpected software behaviour before changing code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for test failures, production bugs, build problems, performance issues, integration failures, and other technical incidents.
Why use it?
It prevents guesswork by requiring the underlying cause to be understood and tested before a fix is proposed.

Command

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/hamr0/agentic-toolkit/debug-method
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/hamr0/agentic-toolkit
Per session 42 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 2,317 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00042 $0.02317
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.01158
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00463
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00232

Measured 2d ago against content hash 2a6e3df6fcce, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

debug-method scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to debug-method — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

ai/subagentic/ampcode/commands/debug-method.md · 298 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 298 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Debug Method

Overview

Random fixes waste time and create new bugs. Quick patches mask underlying issues.

Core principle: ALWAYS find root cause before attempting fixes. Symptom fixes are failure.

Violating the letter of this process is violating the spirit of debugging.

The Iron Law

NO FIXES WITHOUT ROOT CAUSE INVESTIGATION FIRST

If you haven't completed Phase 1, you cannot propose fixes.

When to Use

Use for ANY technical issue:

  • Test failures
  • Bugs in production
  • Unexpected behavior
  • Performance problems
  • Build failures
  • Integration issues

Use this ESPECIALLY when:

  • Under time pressure (emergencies make guessing tempting)
  • "Just one quick fix" seems obvious
  • You've already tried multiple fixes
  • Previous fix didn't work
  • You don't fully understand the issue

Don't skip when:

  • Issue seems simple (simple bugs have root causes too)
  • You're in a hurry (rushing guarantees rework)
  • Manager wants it fixed NOW (systematic is faster than thrashing)

The Four Phases

You MUST complete each phase before proceeding to the next.

Phase 1: Root Cause Investigation

BEFORE attempting ANY fix:

  1. Read Error Messages Carefully

    • Don't skip past errors or warnings
    • They often contain the exact solution
    • Read stack traces completely
    • Note line numbers, file paths, error codes
  2. Reproduce Consistently

    • Can you trigger it reliably?
    • What are the exact steps?
    • Does it happen every time?
    • If not reproducible → gather more data, don't guess
  3. Check Recent Changes

    • What changed that could cause this?
    • Git diff, recent commits
    • New dependencies, config changes
    • Environmental differences
  4. Gather Evidence in Multi-Component Systems

    WHEN system has multiple components (CI → build → signing, API → service → database):

    BEFORE proposing fixes, add diagnostic instrumentation:

    For EACH component boundary:
      - Log what data enters component
      - Log what data exits component
      - Verify environment/config propagation
      - Check state at each layer
    
    Run once to gather evidence showing WHERE it breaks
    THEN analyze evidence to identify failing component
    THEN investigate that specific component
    

Read the full file on GitHub · 298 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 298 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A 2a6e3df6fcce

Subscribe to this mod's changes

debug-method is a command published in the GitHub repository hamr0/agentic-toolkit (22 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 2,317 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to debug-method, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.