systematic-debugging

systematic-debugging is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent. It costs 38 tokens per session (13,476 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A step-by-step method for diagnosing technical problems by finding their underlying cause before changing code. It applies to bugs, failed tests, build problems, performance issues, and integration failures.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for investigating unexpected behavior, production bugs, test failures, build failures, and problems that remain after earlier fixes.
Why use it?
It prevents repeated quick fixes that only hide symptoms and may create new problems. Checking how services are actually connected also prevents incorrect assumptions about the system.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Which agent this was written for is unclear — built for hermes-agent. Also seen: built for hermes-agent; mentions OpenCode.

Good fit It is for investigating unexpected behavior, production bugs, test failures, build failures, and problems that remain after earlier fixes.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent/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 humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent --skill systematic-debugging
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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/humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent/systematic-debugging.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent/systematic-debugging)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent/systematic-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent/systematic-debugging.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 38 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 13,476 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 2 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 $0.00038 $0.13476
Opus 5 $0.00019 $0.06738
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.02695
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.01348

Measured 4d ago against content hash aa764517767e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

systematic-debugging scanned grade C with 2 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 4d 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.

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

- Destructive operations (`rm -rf`, `docker compose down`, `drop database`, `kubectl delete`) can cause data loss, service outage, or cascade failures the agent cannot recover from

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

- A curl test from your terminal is the same environment as `wrangler dev`. A deployed Worker is NOT.
skills/software-development/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md · 1,351 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 1,351 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Systematic Debugging

Overview

Core principle: ALWAYS find root cause before attempting fixes. Symptom fixes are failure.

Preceding principle — Phase 0: NEVER assume system architecture from naming conventions. Verify the actual wiring (base URL, provider registration, API key env vars) before making claims about how a provider/model/service routes. See the Phase 0 section below.

Violating the letter of this process is violating the spirit of debugging.

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 in production
  • 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)
  • Someone wants it fixed NOW (systematic is faster than thrashing)

First-Fix Rule: Cross-File Audit Before Any Fix

WHEN you encounter ANY error in a recently-refactored or extracted codebase:

  1. Do NOT attempt a single fix.
  2. Immediately run a comprehensive cross-file audit to find ALL broken references.
  3. Fix them ALL in one batch.

Why: Refactoring extractions ALWAYS leave multiple dangling references across multiple files. Each "fix one → discover next" cycle wastes turns and frustrates the user.

User signal to trigger this: If the user says anything like "하나씩 문제가 달라지는데, 전수조사 좀 해봐라" (problems keep changing one at a time, do a thorough investigation) — or even BEFORE they say it, the FIRST time a second distinct error appears after a fix — switch to comprehensive audit mode IMMEDIATELY.

The audit must cover:

  1. All files modified in the extraction (git diff --name-only)
  2. All functions from the original module referenced in extracted files
  3. All lazy imports needed (circular dependency check)
  4. All call sites that need updating (self.method()function(self, ...))
  5. All registration points (class attribute assignment)
  6. All leftover debris at file ends
  7. All cached .pyc files that mask errors

Read the full file on GitHub · 1,351 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 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. 4d ago First seen · 1,351 lines · 0 tokens per session scan C aa764517767e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

systematic-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository humanerd-drew/opencode-drewgent (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 38 tokens to every session and 13,476 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 2 findings (recursive force delete, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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