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lengjingxulengjingxu/pstack-for-codex/skills/principle-fix-root-causes/SKILL.md

principle-fix-root-causes

Skill1 starsChanged 25 days agoMITView on GitHub

Apply when debugging. Trace each symptom back to the first place the system went wrong and fix it there. A guard is a fix only when the state it handles is legitimate.

48 other projects use a version of this, 42 of them edited.

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Projects with it also use ketchup-video, maintain-formal-verification-skill and 2 more.

Other files people use alongside this one.

Files found in the same public projects as a version of this one, more often than they turn up anywhere else. Each project counts once, large collections count for less, and this file's own repository is left out.
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    maintain-formal-verification-skill

    Bring a project's formal verification back in line with the code after the code changes: find the commits that touched verified code, update the model, harness, or properties to describe the code as it is now, rerun, and say whether each failure is drift in the verification or a bug in the code. Use for /maintain-formal-verification-skill, \"is the model still true to the code\", or after merges and refactors that touched verified code without rechecking it.

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  • JoshueOsunaSkill

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The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

7 rules. 1 is common, 6 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 1

    Common

    Most of the 45 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 6

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    When debugging, fix the fault, not the place where it surfaced.

    line 8
  2. Distinctive:

    Ask "why" at each step until the answer is a wrong decision in the code, not a consequence of an earlier one.

    line 14
  3. Distinctive:

    When stuck, instrument. Read the actual error and the actual state.

    line 15
  4. Distinctive:

    When something fails only after a restart, suspect persisted state first: config files, caches, lock files, serialized state.

    line 17
  5. Distinctive:

    Check for the pattern, not just the instance.

    line 18
  6. Common:

    If a workaround needs a paragraph-long comment to justify it, the code is wrong.

    line 19
  7. Distinctive:

    If the deciding fact took a deep dig to find, propose the cheap, always-on signal that would have shown it at first look.

    line 20

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 45 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Fix Root Causes

When debugging, fix the fault, not the place where it surfaced. The symptom is where a wrong state became visible. The root cause is the first place the system did something it should not do, or failed to handle a state it should handle.

Why: A symptom fix hides the evidence and leaves the fault free to surface somewhere else. Each one makes the system harder to reason about, because the code now carries a workaround for a bug that nobody named.

Pattern:

  • Reproduce first.
  • Ask "why" at each step until the answer is a wrong decision in the code, not a consequence of an earlier one.
  • When stuck, instrument. Read the actual error and the actual state. Do not guess.
  • Ask whether the state that triggered the symptom is legitimate. If the system may be in that state, the code that broke on it is the root cause, and handling the state there is the fix. If the state should never exist, a check where it broke hides the bug. Find what produced the state. Guards, retries, swallowed errors, clamped values, and discarded state are the usual ways to hide a bug.
  • When something fails only after a restart, suspect persisted state first: config files, caches, lock files, serialized state.
  • Check for the pattern, not just the instance. Find every place with the same fault and fix them all.
  • If a workaround needs a paragraph-long comment to justify it, the code is wrong. Fix the code, not the comment.
  • If the deciding fact took a deep dig to find, propose the cheap, always-on signal that would have shown it at first look.

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