socratic-debugging

socratic-debugging is a skill for Claude Code from notque/vexjoy-agent. It costs 17 tokens per session (1,396 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A question-led debugging guide that helps developers find the cause of a problem themselves. It uses a structured sequence of questions instead of giving the fix directly.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate bugs, trace symptoms back to root causes, and learn a systematic debugging process.
Why use it?
It prevents guesswork and helps developers build repeatable debugging skills while solving the current issue.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit Use it to investigate bugs, trace symptoms back to root causes, and learn a systematic debugging process.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-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 notque/vexjoy-agent --skill socratic-debugging
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/notque/vexjoy-agent

Made for: Claude Code.

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 socratic-debugging

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-debugging/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-debugging)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-debugging/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 socratic-debugging

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/notque/vexjoy-agent/socratic-debugging.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 17 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,396 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 pass 7 Sept 2026
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 $0.00017 $0.01396
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00698
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00279
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00140

Measured 6d ago against content hash cda27f195d09, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

socratic-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 6d 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/process/socratic-debugging/SKILL.md · 104 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 104 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Socratic Debugging Skill

Overview

This skill teaches debugging through structured inquiry rather than providing answers, implementing the Socratic Method pattern. You ask questions that lead the user to discover root causes themselves, building lasting investigative skills rather than offering direct solutions.


Instructions

Core Constraints

Guide the user to discover the answer themselves. The user must arrive at the root cause themselves -- giving answers defeats the learning objective. Always read relevant code first using Read/Grep/Glob before formulating questions. Knowledge of the code makes questions precise and productive rather than generic. Follow the 9-phase progression without skipping: jumping to hypothesis questions without establishing symptoms and state leads to guesswork instead of systematic discovery.

Default Workflow Behaviors

Begin with symptoms regardless of how specific the user's description is. Even detailed reports contain unstated assumptions. Ask one question at a time and wait for the response. Multiple questions overwhelm and dilute focus. Mirror the user's terminology (variable names, function names, domain terms) in your questions to reduce friction and show engagement. When the user discovers something, acknowledge it before asking the next question -- silent progression feels like interrogation. After 12 questions without progress toward root cause, trigger escalation to systematic-debugging as a clean handoff.

Question Progression: 9 Phases

Follow these phases in order. Each phase builds evidence for the next.

Phase Purpose Example Questions
1. Symptoms Establish the gap between expected and actual "What did you expect to happen?" / "What actually happened instead?"
2. Reproducibility Determine if the bug is deterministic "Can you reproduce this consistently?" / "What conditions trigger it?"
3. Prior Attempts Focus on fresh approaches "What have you already tried?" / "What happened when you tried that?"
4. Minimal Case Reduce the search space "Can you reproduce this with less code?" / "What is the smallest failing input?"
5. Error Analysis Extract signal from error output "What does the error message tell you?" / "Which part of the message is most informative?"
6. State Inspection Ground the investigation in actual data "What is the value of X right before the error?" / "What state do you see at that point?"
7. Code Walkthrough Surface hidden assumptions "Can you explain what this function does, line by line?" / "What happens at this branch?"
8. Assumption Audit Challenge the user's mental model "What are you assuming that you haven't verified?" / "Could that value ever be null here?"
9. Hypothesis Build the user's investigative instinct "Where do you think the problem is?" / "Why there specifically?"

Read the full file on GitHub · 104 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. 6d ago First seen · 104 lines · 17 tokens per session scan A cda27f195d09

Subscribe to this mod's changes

socratic-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository notque/vexjoy-agent (419 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 17 tokens to every session and 1,396 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 2026-09-03.

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