What is debugging-protocol?

A step-by-step protocol for investigating bugs and unexpected software behavior.

Use it to investigate errors, compare expected and actual behavior, inspect recent changes, add regression tests, and verify the complete test suite.

It keeps debugging focused on reproducing the problem, testing ranked explanations, making a minimal fix, and checking for regressions.

debugging-protocol — Cursor rule for Cursor by boparaiamrit

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.

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit

Made for: Cursor.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit/debugging-protocol/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit/debugging-protocol)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit/debugging-protocol"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit/debugging-protocol/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit/debugging-protocol"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit/debugging-protocol.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 12 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.

When invoked 331 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00012	$0.00331
Opus 5.5	$0.00005	$0.00132
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00002	$0.00066
Haiku 4.5	$0.00001	$0.00033

Measured 1mo ago against content hash cdc2c76d7555, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

debugging-protocol 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.

cursor-rules/debugging-protocol.mdc · 44 lines

What it actually says

Debugging Protocol

When debugging an issue, follow the scientific method:

Step 1: Reproduce

Understand the expected vs actual behavior
Identify exact error messages and stack traces
Determine when the issue started (check git log)

Step 2: Hypothesize

Form 3-5 ranked hypotheses based on symptoms
For each: rationale, test to prove/disprove, evidence needed
Start with the most likely hypothesis

Step 3: Investigate

Search for error messages in the codebase
Trace the execution path from entry to failure
Check recent changes: git diff HEAD~5
Read related files completely (don't skim)
Check tests — are tests passing incorrectly?

Step 4: Fix

Apply the minimal correct fix — fewest lines changed
Do NOT refactor while debugging
Add a comment explaining WHY if the fix is non-obvious
Write a regression test that would have caught this bug

Step 5: Verify

Run the full test suite (not just the new test)
Check for ripple effects — did the fix break anything else?
Verify the original symptom is resolved

NEVER

Fix symptoms without understanding root cause
Apply multiple changes at once to "see what sticks"
Skip writing a regression test
Expand scope during debugging (note other issues, fix them separately)

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.

1mo ago First seen · 44 lines · 12 tokens per session scan A cdc2c76d7555

Subscribe to this mod's changes

debugging-protocol is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository boparaiamrit/skills-by-amrit (5 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 12 tokens to every session and 331 once invoked, about $0.0000 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 2026-08-31.

Debugging

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debugging-protocol