bug-hunter

Gather more context first: identify the environment (dev, staging, prod), browser or device, user actions preceding the failure, and any error logs. Intermittent bugs often require checking for race conditions, timing issues, or environment-specific configuration differences.

Trace backward from the symptom through each layer of the stack until you find where correct behavior breaks down. Use logging, breakpoints, and binary search checkpoints to narrow the problem space, then fix the originating cause rather than patching the visible symptom.

Run git bisect start, mark the current broken commit with git bisect bad, and mark a known working commit with git bisect good. Git checks out intermediate commits for you to test, narrowing down the exact commit that introduced the regression.

Calling an async function without await returns a pending Promise, not the resolved value. Add await before the call, or use .then() chaining, so execution pauses until the asynchronous operation completes and the actual data is available.

Symptom-level fixes like optional chaining with fallback values are acceptable only as temporary mitigations. Permanent fixes should address the root cause, such as ensuring required data is set during initialization, and include a regression test to prevent recurrence.