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.
npx agentmods add skills/engineerwithai/engineerwith-agents/debugging-strategiesnpx skills add EngineerWithAI/engineerwith-agents --skill debugging-strategiesgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/EngineerWithAI/engineerwith-agentsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/engineerwithai/engineerwith-agents/debugging-strategies)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/engineerwithai/engineerwith-agents/debugging-strategies"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/engineerwithai/engineerwith-agents/debugging-strategies.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>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 | $0.00043 | $0.03025 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00022 | $0.01512 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00009 | $0.00605 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00302 |
Grade A, and why
debugging-strategies 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 yesterday.
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.
This is a copy
95% identical to debugging-strategies — 152 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 528 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Debugging Strategies
Transform debugging from frustrating guesswork into systematic problem-solving with proven strategies, powerful tools, and methodical approaches.
When to Use This Skill
- Tracking down elusive bugs
- Investigating performance issues
- Understanding unfamiliar codebases
- Debugging production issues
- Analyzing crash dumps and stack traces
- Profiling application performance
- Investigating memory leaks
- Debugging distributed systems
Core Principles
1. The Scientific Method
1. Observe: What's the actual behavior? 2. Hypothesize: What could be causing it? 3. Experiment: Test your hypothesis 4. Analyze: Did it prove/disprove your theory? 5. Repeat: Until you find the root cause
2. Debugging Mindset
Don't Assume:
- "It can't be X" - Yes it can
- "I didn't change Y" - Check anyway
- "It works on my machine" - Find out why
Do:
- Reproduce consistently
- Isolate the problem
- Keep detailed notes
- Question everything
- Take breaks when stuck
3. Rubber Duck Debugging
Explain your code and problem out loud (to a rubber duck, colleague, or yourself). Often reveals the issue.
Systematic Debugging Process
Phase 1: Reproduce
## Reproduction Checklist
1. **Can you reproduce it?**
- Always? Sometimes? Randomly?
- Specific conditions needed?
- Can others reproduce it?
2. **Create minimal reproduction**
- Simplify to smallest example
- Remove unrelated code
- Isolate the problem
3. **Document steps**
- Write down exact steps
- Note environment details
- Capture error messages
Phase 2: Gather Information
## Information Collection
1. **Error Messages**
- Full stack trace
- Error codes
- Console/log output
2. **Environment**
- OS version
- Language/runtime version
- Dependencies versions
- Environment variables
3. **Recent Changes**
- Git history
- Deployment timeline
- Configuration changes
4. **Scope**
- Affects all users or specific ones?
- All browsers or specific ones?
- Production only or also dev?
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.
- yesterday First seen · 528 lines · 43 tokens per session scan A 61dbd539f0f9
debugging-strategies is a skill published in the GitHub repository EngineerWithAI/engineerwith-agents (4 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 43 tokens to every session and 3,025 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 95% identical to debugging-strategies, differing in 152 lines, and is treated as a copy.
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