systematic-debugging

systematic-debugging is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from moltis-org/moltis. It costs 33 tokens per session (2,431 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A four-phase method for investigating bugs, failed tests, build problems, and other unexpected behavior before changing code.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps trace symptoms to their root cause in software issues, including production bugs, performance problems, integration failures, and test failures.
Why use it?
It prevents guesswork and temporary patches that hide the real cause or create new problems.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

About the project

Moltis is a persistent personal agent server written in Rust that runs on hardware controlled by its user. It provides an AI agent with sandboxed command execution, model-provider connections, memory, voice, scheduling, messaging integrations, browser automation, and MCP tools. Its catalogue add-ons extend the agent’s workflows and available tools.

moltis-org/moltis · 2,845 stars · on GitHub

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/moltis-org/moltis/systematic-debugging
Any agent
npx skills add moltis-org/moltis --skill systematic-debugging
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/moltis-org/moltis

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/moltis-org/moltis/systematic-debugging.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/moltis-org/moltis/systematic-debugging)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/moltis-org/moltis/systematic-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/moltis-org/moltis/systematic-debugging.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 33 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,431 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 $0.00033 $0.02431
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.01215
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00486
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00243

Measured yesterday against content hash 9a97aab450ce, 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 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

8 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

crates/skills/src/assets/software-development/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md · 364 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 364 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

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 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)

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

Action: Use read_file on the relevant source files. Use search_files to find the error string in the codebase.

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

Action: Use the terminal tool to run the failing test or trigger the bug:

# Run specific failing test
pytest tests/test_module.py::test_name -v

# Run with verbose output
pytest tests/test_module.py -v --tb=long

3. Check Recent Changes

  • What changed that could cause this?
  • Git diff, recent commits
  • New dependencies, config changes

Read the full file on GitHub · 364 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. yesterday First seen · 364 lines · 33 tokens per session scan A 9a97aab450ce

Subscribe to this mod's changes

systematic-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository moltis-org/moltis (2,845 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 33 tokens to every session and 2,431 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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