shipyard-debugging

shipyard-debugging is a skill for Claude Code from lgbarn/shipyard. It costs 82 tokens per session (2,698 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A structured debugging guide for finding the underlying cause of bugs, errors, failed tests, and other unexpected behavior before changing code.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps investigate tracebacks, build failures, performance issues, integration problems, and reports that something is not working.
Why use it?
It prevents guesses and quick patches that hide the real problem or create new bugs.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the shipyard plugin — 25 skills, 25 commands, 20 agents, 6 hooks shipped together

Good fit It helps investigate tracebacks, build failures, performance issues, integration problems, and reports that something is not working.

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

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install shipyard, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 25 skills, 25 commands, 20 agents, 6 hooks.

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 shipyard-debugging

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lgbarn/shipyard/shipyard-debugging.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/lgbarn/shipyard/shipyard-debugging)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/lgbarn/shipyard/shipyard-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lgbarn/shipyard/shipyard-debugging.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 82 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,698 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 3 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Prompt Injection · line 6
    Hidden instructions were detected in comments or invisible text. These could contain malicious directives. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Audit all comments and invisible characters. Remove any instructions that direct the agent to perform unauthorized actions. Use plain, reviewable content.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 117
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 118
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
How audits are shown
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 $0.00082 $0.02698
Opus 5 $0.00041 $0.01349
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00540
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00270

Measured 4d ago against content hash 0cf723cf4825, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

shipyard-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 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.

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.

plugins/shipyard/skills/shipyard-debugging/SKILL.md · 343 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 343 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Systematic Debugging

When This Skill Activates

  • Any bug, error, test failure, or unexpected behavior encountered
  • Error/exception/traceback/failure appearing in output
  • Before proposing any fix -- must investigate root cause first

Natural Language Triggers

  • "fix this bug", "why is this failing", "debug this", "it's broken", "something's wrong", "not working"

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 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)
  • Manager wants it fixed NOW (systematic is faster than thrashing)

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
    • They often contain the exact solution
    • Read stack traces completely
    • Note line numbers, file paths, error codes
  2. Reproduce Consistently

    • Can you trigger it reliably?
    • What are the exact steps?
    • Does it happen every time?
    • If not reproducible -- gather more data, don't guess

Read the full file on GitHub · 343 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. 4d ago First seen · 343 lines · 82 tokens per session scan A 0cf723cf4825

Subscribe to this mod's changes

shipyard-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository lgbarn/shipyard (65 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 82 tokens to every session and 2,698 once invoked, about $0.0004 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 2026-09-03.

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