What problem does it solve? Developers under time pressure often apply quick symptom fixes that fail repeatedly, causing hours of thrashing and recurring bugs. This Skill enforces a disciplined four-phase debugging methodology that finds the actual root cause before any fix is attempted. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Four-Phase Process: Root cause investigation, pattern analysis, hypothesis testing, and verified implementation with explicit gates between phases. - Supporting Techniques: Includes root-cause tracing through call stacks, defense-in-depth validation across layers, and condition-based waiting to replace flaky arbitrary timeouts. - Pressure Resistance: Built-in red flags, rationalization tables, and architectural escalation rules (question the design after 3 failed fixes) that hold up under deadlines and authority pressure. - Use Case: When a test fails intermittently in CI, instead of adding sleep calls, trace the data flow backward, form a single hypothesis, create a failing test, and fix the source with validation at every layer. ## Quick Start Use the systematic-debugging skill to investigate this failing test and find its root cause before suggesting any fix.
