process-debugging
Skill2 starsChanged 8 days agoMITView on GitHub
Use for hangs, resource spikes, occupied ports, zombies, crash loops, or failing Linux/macOS services; start with bounded process evidence.
In this repository15 other files it gives its agents.
- AGENTS.mdAGENTS.md
- CLAUDE.mdCLAUDE.md
- capability-incident-diagnoserSkill
- context-managementSkill
- goal-workflowSkill
- host-cli-usageSkill
- tool-useSkill
- fast-checksSkill
- filesystem-wizardSkill
- lean-codeSkill
- test-freshnessSkill
- security-boundary-reviewSkill
- portable-shellSkill
- brokered-git-operatorSkill
- finalize-loopSkill
The file
We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent
2 rules. About 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 1 is very specific to this project.
≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈1
Distinctive · estimate
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
1
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Distinctive: line 10
Start read-only and inspect only the relevant process tree.
- Very specific: line 27
Follow the evidence: compare memory snapshots.
≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
Diagnose the process, not the symptom
Identify the task-related PID or unit, its owner, and the observation interval. Start read-only and inspect only the relevant process tree. A snapshot is not a trend, and a busy process is not necessarily the bottleneck.
Useful entrypoints include pgrep -af <name> on Linux, pgrep -lf <name> on
macOS, and a port-specific ss or lsof query. For a bounded baseline, run
sh scripts/proc-snapshot.sh <pid> from this skill directory
(script). Inspect and redact sensitive arguments
or paths before sharing output.
| State | Next question |
| R | Sustained CPU work or just this sample? |
| S | Which wait channel, socket, or child explains the wait? |
| D | Blocked storage or NFS? Killing cannot resolve the I/O wait. |
| Z | Why is the parent not reaping children? |
| T | Which signal or debugger stopped it? |
Follow the evidence: compare memory snapshots; inspect bounded service logs
or OOM evidence; use thread views for CPU. systemctl/journalctl and
launchctl/log have different scopes. A debugger or syscall trace can
perturb or pause the target: attach only within permission and with a time
limit. macOS often needs tool-native durations rather than timeout.
Signals and restarts change availability. Signal only processes you started or are authorized to stop: terminate gracefully, wait, and escalate only if needed and authorized. Never signal PID 1, the agent's harness, or another user's process. Unit restarts need authorization.
Report PID/unit, observed state, decisive evidence, and whether the cause is confirmed or a hypothesis.
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