systematic-debugging

systematic-debugging is a skill for Claude Code from ArtemioPadilla/agent-triforce. It costs 50 tokens per session (1,278 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A four-phase method for investigating bugs, failed tests, build failures, performance problems, and other unexpected behavior.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to read errors and stack traces, reproduce failures, inspect recent changes, check component boundaries, and then decide on a fix.
Why use it?
It prevents guess-and-check fixes by requiring the underlying cause to be reproduced and traced first.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: $ARGUMENTS substitution.

Good fit Use it to read errors and stack traces, reproduce failures, inspect recent changes, check component boundaries, and then decide on a fix.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/artemiopadilla/agent-triforce/systematic-debugging
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.

Any agent
npx skills add ArtemioPadilla/agent-triforce --skill systematic-debugging
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ArtemioPadilla/agent-triforce

Made for: Claude Code.

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.

agentmods badge for systematic-debugging

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/artemiopadilla/agent-triforce/systematic-debugging.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/artemiopadilla/agent-triforce/systematic-debugging)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/artemiopadilla/agent-triforce/systematic-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/artemiopadilla/agent-triforce/systematic-debugging.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 50 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,278 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00050 $0.01278
Opus 5 $0.00025 $0.00639
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00256
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00128

Measured 8d ago against content hash c6260c0aa108, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

systematic-debugging 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 8d 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.

.claude/skills/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md · 152 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 152 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Systematic Debugging

Debug: $ARGUMENTS

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, unexpected behavior, performance problems, build failures, integration issues.

Use ESPECIALLY when:

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

Phase 1: Root Cause Investigation

BEFORE attempting ANY fix:

  1. Read error messages carefully

    • Don't skip past errors or warnings
    • Read stack traces completely
    • Note line numbers, file paths, error codes
  2. Reproduce consistently

    • Can you trigger it reliably?
    • What are the exact steps?
    • If not reproducible, gather more data — don't guess
  3. Check recent changes

    • git diff, recent commits
    • New dependencies, config changes
    • Environmental differences
  4. Gather evidence in multi-component systems

    For EACH component boundary:
      - Log what data enters component
      - Log what data exits component
      - Verify environment/config propagation
    
    Run once to gather evidence showing WHERE it breaks
    THEN analyze evidence to identify failing component
    THEN investigate that specific component
    
  5. Trace data flow (root-cause tracing)

    • Where does the bad value originate?
    • What called this with the bad value?
    • Keep tracing backward until you find the source
    • Fix at source, not at symptom

Phase 2: Pattern Analysis

  1. Find working examples — locate similar working code in the same codebase
  2. Compare against references — read reference implementations COMPLETELY, don't skim
  3. Identify differences — list every difference between working and broken, however small
  4. Understand dependencies — what components, settings, config, environment does this need?

Read the full file on GitHub · 152 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. 8d ago First seen · 152 lines · 50 tokens per session scan A c6260c0aa108

Subscribe to this mod's changes

systematic-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository ArtemioPadilla/agent-triforce (3 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 50 tokens to every session and 1,278 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 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.