Debugging Skill
Purpose
Systematically diagnose and fix bugs, errors, and unexpected behavior in code through structured analysis.
When to Use
- •During Gate 3 (implementation quality)
- •When encountering runtime errors
- •When tests fail unexpectedly
- •For logic error investigation
- •For performance issue root cause analysis
Checklist
Critical (P0) - Must Pass
- • Root cause identified (not just symptoms)
- • Fix addresses root cause
- • No regression introduced
- • Error no longer reproducible
- • Related code paths checked
Important (P1) - Should Pass
- • Test added to prevent regression
- • Error handling improved
- • Logging added for future debugging
- • Documentation updated if behavior changed
- • Similar patterns checked elsewhere
Nice-to-have (P2) - Informational
- • Debug notes documented
- • Monitoring/alerts added
- • Performance impact assessed
- • Related improvements identified
- • Knowledge shared with team
Suggestions (P3) - Optional
- • Automated prevention possible
- • Tool/process improvement ideas
- • Training opportunity identified
- • Architecture improvement suggested
Pass Criteria
| Level | Requirement |
|---|---|
| P0 | All items pass |
| P1 | Max 1 failure |
| P2 | Informational |
| P3 | Optional |
Evidence Output
Path: .tad/evidence/reviews/{date}-debugging-{task}.md
Execution Contract
- •Input: error_description, stack_trace, file_paths[], context{}
- •Output: {passed: bool, root_cause: string, fix_applied: bool, evidence_path: string}
- •Timeout: 300s
- •Parallelizable: false
Claude Enhancement
When running on Claude Code, call subagent debugging-assistant for deeper analysis.
Reference: .tad/templates/output-formats/debugging-format.md
Debugging Process
1. Reproduce
- • Error consistently reproducible
- • Minimal reproduction case identified
- • Environment factors documented
- • Trigger conditions understood
2. Isolate
- • Scope narrowed to specific module
- • Related components ruled out
- • Data dependencies identified
- • Timing/order dependencies checked
3. Analyze
- • Stack trace examined
- • Logs reviewed
- • State inspection performed
- • Hypothesis formed
4. Fix
- • Root cause addressed
- • Minimal change principle followed
- • Side effects considered
- • Rollback plan available
5. Verify
- • Original error resolved
- • No new errors introduced
- • Edge cases tested
- • Performance acceptable
6. Document
- • Fix documented
- • Lessons learned captured
- • Prevention measures identified
- • Knowledge shared