debug

Evidence-First Debugging

Coexistence with Superpowers

This skill is autopilot's standalone fallback for debugging methodology. If the superpowers plugin is installed, you may prefer superpowers:systematic-debugging — both work; .claude/dispatch-config.md's ## Debugging chain controls which one orchestrator skills (ceo-agent / finish-flow / quality-pipeline) dispatch.

Differences worth knowing:

• autopilot:debug is evidence-first (tool → log → code) with explicit Three Red Lines integration and debug-config.md project context injection. Stricter discipline; prescriptive ordering.
• superpowers:systematic-debugging is more general-purpose with broader hypothesis-driven framing. Less prescriptive, broader applicability.

!cat .claude/debug-config.md 2>/dev/null || echo "No project-specific debug config found. Use generic evidence collection below."

Core Principle

1. Tool-collected evidence  -> profiler, logs, EXPLAIN, debugger, DevTools
2. Log analysis             -> correlate with tool findings
3. Source code analysis     -> informed by evidence from 1 + 2

Never guess from code alone. Always collect evidence first.

Relationship with Profiling

Skill	When to Use
debug	Correctness: crashes, bugs, logic errors, data corruption, connectivity
profiling	Performance: slow queries, high memory, CPU spikes, latency

If unsure, start with debug. If evidence points to a performance root cause, switch to profiling.

Debug Cycle

1. Reproduce the issue reliably
2. Collect evidence with appropriate tools
3. Form hypothesis based on evidence
4. Verify hypothesis (don't assume)
5. Fix root cause (not symptoms)
6. Verify fix with same tool + same test
7. Record in knowledge base if non-trivial (invoke learn skill)

3-fix architecture gate. If 3 fix attempts have failed, STOP attempting fix #4 — the repeated failure is itself evidence that the mental model of the architecture is wrong, not that the next tweak is the right one. Step back and question the structure: is the bug where you think it is? Is a component boundary / assumption (data shape, ordering, ownership, environment) violated upstream of where you're patching? Re-collect evidence at the boundary above the suspected site before any further fix. (Changing a flag/parameter is not a new attempt; changing the diagnostic angle is.)

Evidence Collection Guide

Identify the right tools for your problem category. If your project has a debug-config.md, it will list specific commands. Otherwise, use this generic guide:

Problem Category	What to Look For	Generic Tool Examples
Crash / panic	Stack trace, exit code, core dump	Debugger (gdb/lldb), backtrace env vars, crash logs
Logic error	Wrong output, unexpected state	Breakpoints, print/log statements, unit test isolation
Data corruption	Bad values in storage, schema mismatch	DB query tools, EXPLAIN plans, data validation scripts
Connectivity	Timeout, refused, DNS failure	curl, netcat, ping, tcpdump, browser Network tab
Auth / permissions	401/403, token expiry, role mismatch	Token decode tools, request headers, auth middleware logs
Build / compile	Error messages, missing deps	Build tool verbose mode, dependency tree, clean rebuild
State / concurrency	Race condition, deadlock, stale cache	Thread dumps, lock analysis, cache inspection

Log Query Funnel

1. Filter by time range -- narrow to incident window
2. Filter by severity -- errors, warnings, panics, exceptions
3. Correlate by request -- trace ID, request ID, session context
4. Expand context -- surrounding log lines for the correlated events

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Fix
Guessing from code without evidence	Collect tool evidence first
Changing code to "see what happens"	Form hypothesis, then verify
Fixing symptoms instead of root cause	Trace the full causal chain
Ignoring intermittent failures	Reproduce under controlled conditions
Assuming "works on my machine"	Check environment differences

See Also

• learn -- record debugging discoveries
• audit -- systematic comparison for parity issues
• profiling -- performance-specific investigation