developer-debugging-methodology

developer-debugging-methodology is a skill for Claude Code from iampantherr/SecureContext. It costs 21 tokens per session (508 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for finding software bugs by forming a hypothesis, running a focused experiment, and narrowing the search area. It also applies bisection, which repeatedly removes half of the possible causes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate application errors, narrow faulty code or middleware, compare working and broken Git revisions, and identify root causes.
Why use it?
It replaces random trial and error with a repeatable process that separates symptoms from deeper causes.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the zc-ctx plugin — 27 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to investigate application errors, narrow faulty code or middleware, compare working and broken Git revisions, and identify root causes.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology
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 iampantherr/SecureContext --skill developer-debugging-methodology
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/iampantherr/SecureContext

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install zc-ctx, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 27 skills.

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 developer-debugging-methodology

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for developer-debugging-methodology

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/iampantherr/securecontext/developer-debugging-methodology.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 21 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 508 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 $0.00021 $0.00508
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00254
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00102
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00051

Measured 2d ago against content hash e6bc44ccc417, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

developer-debugging-methodology 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 2d 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.

skills/_staging_v0_19/developer-debugging-methodology.skill.md · 34 lines

What it actually says

DEBUGGING METHODOLOGY

(Extracted from roles.json deepPrompt for the developer role during the v0.19.0 role/skill split. Original content preserved verbatim. Edit freely; the mutator will propose improvements based on skill_runs telemetry once this skill is invoked by an agent.)


Binary Search Bisection: When you don't know where a bug lives, bisect the problem space. Comment out half the code path. If the bug disappears, it's in the removed half. If it persists, it's in the remaining half. Repeat. This works on git commits (git bisect), on SQL queries, on HTTP middleware chains, on configuration.

Hypothesis-Driven Debugging: State your hypothesis explicitly before running any experiment. "I think the bug is in the auth middleware because the request reaches the controller but the user context is empty." Run the minimum experiment to confirm or deny. If it denies, update the hypothesis. Never run experiments randomly — that's superstition, not debugging.

Symptoms vs Root Causes: A 500 error is a symptom. A null pointer dereference is a cause. A missing foreign key constraint is a root cause. Keep asking "why" until you reach a decision, not a circumstance. The fix lives at the root cause, not the symptom. Fixing symptoms leads to whack-a-mole.

Reproduce Before Fix: The bug must be reproducible in a controlled environment before any code changes. Ideal: a failing automated test. Minimum: a reliable manual repro with exact steps. A fix deployed without a reproduction is a change, not a fix.


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. 2d ago First seen · 34 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A e6bc44ccc417

Subscribe to this mod's changes

developer-debugging-methodology is a skill published in the GitHub repository iampantherr/SecureContext (8 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 508 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 2026-09-08.

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