systematic-debugging

A step-by-step method for investigating bugs, test failures, and unexpected software behavior before suggesting a fix.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate failures, reproduce issues, trace data and control flow, and decide whether a proposed fix addresses the actual cause. It can be followed alongside separate testing and verification practices.
Why use it?
It prevents symptom-based patches that waste time and can introduce more problems. The method requires finding the root cause first and checking workflow warnings during debugging.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/coctostan/pi-superpowers-plus/systematic-debugging
Any agent
npx skills add coctostan/pi-superpowers-plus --skill systematic-debugging
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/coctostan/pi-superpowers-plus

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 21 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,662 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00021 $0.01662
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00831
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00332
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00166

Measured 3d ago against content hash d4096fb47ee0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, 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 3d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 2 executable files (condition-based-waiting-example.ts, find-polluter.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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.

skills/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md · 171 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 171 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Related skills: Write a failing test for the bug with /skill:test-driven-development. Verify the fix with /skill:verification-before-completion.

Systematic Debugging

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 workflow-monitor extension tracks your debugging: it detects fix-without-investigation and counts failed fix attempts, surfacing warnings in tool results. Use workflow_reference with debug topics for additional guidance.

If a tool result contains a ⚠️ workflow warning, stop immediately and address it before continuing.

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 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)

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. 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 enters, what exits, verify config propagation. Run once to see WHERE it breaks, then investigate that component.

Read the full file on GitHub · 171 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 3d ago First seen · 171 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A d4096fb47ee0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

systematic-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository coctostan/pi-superpowers-plus (104 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 1,662 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-08-30.

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