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SwarmAI: Instructions file for Kiro

.kiro/steering/debugging-methodology.md

SwarmAI debugging-methodology.md is an instructions file for Kiro from xg-gh-25/SwarmAI. It costs 459 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

A project-specific guide for diagnosing SwarmAI problems, including shell variables, background services, and launchd on macOS. It gives an ordered set of checks and commands for common failures.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate missing variables, backend startup failures, service loading, port checks, and daemon logs in SwarmAI.
Why use it?
It reduces guesswork by preserving lessons from earlier incidents and pointing to the project's single sources of truth and logs.

Instructions file for Kiro

Written for Kiro: installed under .kiro/.

This is xg-gh-25/SwarmAI's own configuration. It tells Kiro how to work on SwarmAI itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything SwarmAI configures →

not rated 55repo +1 8d ago A scan 459 tokens original MIT
View source ↗ xg-gh-25/SwarmAI
Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to xg-gh-25/SwarmAI. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xg-gh-25/SwarmAI/main/.kiro/steering/debugging-methodology.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/xg-gh-25/SwarmAI

Made for: Kiro.

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Per session 459 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 459 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found 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 5.1 $0.00459 $0.00459
Opus 5.5 $0.00184 $0.00184
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00092 $0.00092
Haiku 4.5 $0.00046 $0.00046

Measured 1mo ago against content hash f76705060197, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

SwarmAI debugging-methodology.md 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 1mo 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.

.kiro/steering/debugging-methodology.md · 39 lines

What it actually says

Debugging Methodology

Rules for diagnosing issues in this project. Learned from real incidents.

Shell Variable Issues

  1. Empty/undefined variable → git blame FIRST, then fix

    • grep -rn "VAR_NAME=" **/*.sh to find if it's defined anywhere
    • git log --all -p -- <file> | grep VAR_NAME to find when it was removed/renamed
    • Understand WHY it's missing before adding a definition
    • Never duplicate path definitions — find the single source of truth

  2. Single source of truth for paths

    • scripts/daemon-lib.sh owns: BACKEND_BUNDLE_DIR, BACKEND_BINARY, DAEMON_DIR, DAEMON_BINARY, DAEMON_PORT
    • dev.sh and prod.sh source it — never redefine these variables in them

Daemon / launchd Issues

  1. "Backend failed to start" diagnosis order:
    1. nc -z 127.0.0.1 18321 — is port responding?
    2. launchctl list | grep swarmai — is the agent loaded? (PID column = running)
    3. tail -20 ~/.swarm-ai/logs/backend-daemon.log — startup errors?
    4. tail -20 ~/.swarm-ai/logs/backend-stderr.log — crash output?
    5. If agent not loaded: launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.swarmai.backend.plist

General Debugging Discipline

  1. Don't say "transient" without evidence

    • If the user can reproduce it, it's not transient
    • Reproduce it yourself or trace the exact code path

  2. Trace errors to their source, don't patch symptoms

    • PermissionError: '' → who passed the empty string? → which variable? → where should it be defined?
    • Follow the call chain backwards, don't guess forward

  3. Refactoring verification

    • When a variable is renamed/moved: grep ALL consumers, not just the definition
    • set -u in scripts catches undefined variables — recommend adding it
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. 1mo ago First seen · 39 lines · 459 tokens per session scan A f76705060197

Subscribe to this mod's changes

SwarmAI debugging-methodology.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository xg-gh-25/SwarmAI (55 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 459 tokens to every session, about $0.0018 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-06.

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