Systematic Debugging

Overview

Structured approach to investigating and resolving defects using hypothesis-driven methodology rather than trial-and-error.

When to Use

• Step verification fails during implementation
• Unexpected behavior discovered during testing
• Bug reports require investigation
• Performance issues need root cause analysis

Process

1. Reproduce - Confirm the defect with a minimal reproduction
2. Hypothesize - Form theories about the root cause
3. Investigate - Systematically test hypotheses (logs, breakpoints, bisection)
4. Isolate - Narrow to the specific component/line
5. Fix - Apply targeted fix addressing root cause
6. Verify - Confirm fix resolves the issue without regression

Key Rules

• Never apply fixes without understanding the root cause
• Use web-researcher agent for unfamiliar error patterns
• Document the investigation path for future reference
• Verify that the fix does not introduce regressions

Tool Use

Integrated into methodologies/rpikit/rpikit-implement (failure handling)