Agent-Skills.md

Agent Skills: Debugging Expert

Systematic troubleshooting using the Scientific Method. Use when debugging crashes, tracing errors, diagnosing unexpected behavior, or investigating exceptions. (triggers: debug, fix bug, crash, error, exception, troubleshooting)

UncategorizedID: hoangnguyen0403/agent-skills-standard/common-debugging

Repository

hoangnguyen0403/agent-skills-standard
HoangNguyen0403License: Apache-2.0
362103

Install this agent skill to your local

pnpm dlx add-skill https://github.com/HoangNguyen0403/agent-skills-standard/tree/HEAD/.agent/skills/common/common-debugging

Skill Files

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.agent/skills/common/common-debugging/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
common-debugging
Description
'Systematic troubleshooting using the Scientific Method. Use when debugging crashes, tracing errors, diagnosing unexpected behavior, or investigating exceptions. (triggers: debug, fix bug, crash, error, exception, troubleshooting)'

Debugging Expert

Priority: P1 (OPERATIONAL)

Systematic, evidence-based troubleshooting. Do not guess; prove.

🔬 The Scientific Method

  1. OBSERVE: Gather data. What exactly is happening?
    • Logs, Stack Traces, Screenshots, Steps to Reproduce.
  2. HYPOTHESIZE: Formulate a theory. "I think X is causing Y because Z."
  3. EXPERIMENT: Test the theory.
    • Create a reproduction case.
    • Change one variable at a time to validate the hypothesis.
  4. FIX: Implement the solution once the root cause is proven.
  5. VERIFY: Ensure the fix works and doesn't introduce regressions.

🚫 Anti-Patterns

  • Shotgun Debugging: Randomly changing things hoping it works.
  • Console Log Spam: Leaving print/console.log in production code.
  • Fixing Symptoms: masking the error (e.g., try-catch without handling) instead of fixing the root cause.

🛠 Best Practices

  • Diff Diagnosis: What changed since it last worked?
  • Minimal Repro: Create the smallest possible code snippet that reproduces the issue.
  • Rubber Ducking: Explain the code line-by-line to an inanimate object (or the agent).
  • Binary Search: Comment out half the code to isolate the failing section.

📚 References