What is systematic-debugging-codex?

A four-phase debugging workflow that uses Codex for root-cause investigation before a fix is applied. It requires the investigation to happen before implementation.

Investigating errors with messages, stack traces, reproduction steps, logs, and recent changes, then applying a supported fix.

It reduces symptom-based fixes by making the agent collect evidence and identify the underlying cause first.

systematic-debugging-codex — Skill for Claude Code by mzored

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 mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex --skill systematic-debugging-codex

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install superpowers-cc-to-codex, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 11 skills, 2 commands.

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex/systematic-debugging-codex/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex/systematic-debugging-codex)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex/systematic-debugging-codex"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex/systematic-debugging-codex/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex/systematic-debugging-codex"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex/systematic-debugging-codex.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 37 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,239 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00037	$0.01239
Opus 5.5	$0.00015	$0.00496
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00007	$0.00248
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00124

Measured 2mo ago against content hash bee4e39e3502, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

systematic-debugging-codex 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 2mo ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 2 executable files (condition-based-waiting-example.ts, find-polluter.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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/systematic-debugging-codex/SKILL.md · 118 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 118 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Systematic Debugging

Keep Claude in the main thread for user interaction and fix decisions. Call codex_debug for bounded root cause investigation (Phases 1-3). Call codex_implement / codex_resume for applying fixes (Phase 4).

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

The Iron Law

NO FIXES WITHOUT ROOT CAUSE INVESTIGATION FIRST

Checklist

You MUST complete these steps in order:

Phases 1-3: Investigation (Codex)

Gather context — collect error messages, stack traces, reproduction steps, recent changes from the user or logs. This is Claude's job.
Dispatch investigator — call the codex_debug MCP tool. Pass a full prompt body with the reproduction steps, current evidence, recent changes, and the exact question Codex should answer.

{
  "tool": "codex_debug",
  "arguments": {
    "prompt": "Investigate why Codex-backed agents are still doing repository work locally instead of forwarding through the adapter. Include the current failure mode, relevant files, and the strongest root-cause hypothesis supported by code evidence.",
    "workspaceRoot": "/absolute/path/to/your/repo"
  }
}

Handle the response:
- Success (result populated): the investigation conforms to schemas/debug-investigation.schema.json (root_cause, evidence, working_examples, hypothesis, suggested_fix). Proceed to validate (Step 4).
- Weak or missing evidence: re-dispatch codex_debug with a sharper prompt naming the missing pieces (or surface a blocker to the user when needed).
- Error (no result): inspect stderrTail and the resume hint in the error message; resume with codex_resume(taskId="…") once the cause is resolved.

Read the full file on GitHub · 118 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 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.

2mo ago First seen · 118 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A bee4e39e3502

Subscribe to this mod's changes

systematic-debugging-codex is a skill published in the GitHub repository mzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex (7 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 1,239 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-08-31.

Claude Code Debugging ai-coding claude-code-plugin codex mcp superpowers

systematic-debugging-codex next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
systematic-debugging-codexmzored/superpowers-cc-to-codex	Skill	7	6mo ago	MIT	A	37	Claude Code
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