systematic-debugging

systematic-debugging is a skill for Claude Code from sangrokjung/claude-forge. It costs 53 tokens per session (1,744 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A step-by-step method for finding the root cause of software problems before suggesting a fix. It applies to bugs, failed builds, deployment errors, configuration conflicts, dependency issues, and infrastructure failures.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate errors, test failures, broken deployments, dependency problems, configuration issues, and failures that resisted earlier fixes.
Why use it?
It prevents guesswork and temporary patches that hide the real problem. The investigation starts by classifying the failure and gathering evidence.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the claude-forge plugin — 33 skills, 39 commands, 17 agents shipped together

Good fit Use it to investigate errors, test failures, broken deployments, dependency problems, configuration issues, and failures that resisted earlier fixes.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sangrokjung/claude-forge/systematic-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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sangrokjung/claude-forge/systematic-debugging
Any agent
npx skills add sangrokjung/claude-forge --skill systematic-debugging
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sangrokjung/claude-forge

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install claude-forge, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 33 skills, 39 commands, 17 agents.

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/sangrokjung/claude-forge/systematic-debugging.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/sangrokjung/claude-forge/systematic-debugging)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sangrokjung/claude-forge/systematic-debugging"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sangrokjung/claude-forge/systematic-debugging.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 53 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,744 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 5.1 $0.00053 $0.01744
Opus 5 $0.00026 $0.00872
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00349
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00174

Measured 2d ago against content hash 5d93c80e8f3a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, 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 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/systematic-debugging/SKILL.md · 188 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 188 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Systematic Debugging

Overview

Guessing fixes wastes time and creates new bugs. Quick patches hide root problems.

Core principle: Never fix before finding the root cause. Symptom fixing is failure.

Iron Law

Never propose a fix without root cause investigation.

Phase 0 or Phase 1 must be completed before any fix is proposed. Phase 0 fixes are ONLY allowed when ALL of these are true:

  • External research found an official solution or known issue for this exact error
  • Change is single file, single point (config value, import, typo)
  • No logic changes

When to Use

All technical problems:

  • Test failures, build errors, deploy errors
  • Config conflicts, dependency issues
  • Infrastructure/environment problems
  • Unexpected behavior, performance issues

Especially when:

  • Under time pressure (urgency breeds guessing)
  • "Let me just quickly fix this" comes to mind
  • Multiple fix attempts have already been tried
  • Previous fixes didn't work
  • You don't fully understand the problem

The Phases

Each Phase must complete before proceeding to the next.

Phase 0: Quick Assessment

Run immediately when an error occurs. Before any fix attempt.

  1. Classify the error — read the error message/symptoms:

    • Same code works in different environment? → Environment issue
    • After recent dependency/version change? → Dependency issue
    • Only fails in specific code path? → Code issue
  2. External research (exact match, 5 min max) — check official docs and GitHub Issues for known issues. Don't rely on self-knowledge alone.

    • See: references/external-research-guide.md
  3. Branch decision:

    • All Iron Law conditions met → Fix in Phase 0
    • Any condition unmet → Enter Phase 1 full process
    • Phase 0 quick-fix fails: Undo (git checkout/undo), enter Phase 1. This attempt counts in the fix counter.

Phase 1: Root Cause Investigation

Before any fix attempt:

  1. Read the error carefully
    • Don't skip errors/warnings
    • Read the entire stack trace
    • Record line numbers, file paths, error codes

Read the full file on GitHub · 188 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 188 lines · 53 tokens per session scan A 5d93c80e8f3a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

systematic-debugging is a skill published in the GitHub repository sangrokjung/claude-forge (824 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 53 tokens to every session and 1,744 once invoked, about $0.0003 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.