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theishandubeytheishandubey/dotclaude/skills/principle-fix-root-causes/SKILL.md

principle-fix-root-causes

Skill2 starsChanged 27 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.

53 other projects use a version of this, 45 of them edited.

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Projects with it also use principle-explain-the-number, setup-pstack and 9 more.

Other files people use alongside this one.

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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 48 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 48 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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