Debugging and Error Recovery

Overview

Systematic debugging with structured triage. When something breaks, stop adding features, preserve evidence, and follow a structured process to find and fix the root cause. Guessing wastes time. The triage checklist works for test failures, build errors, runtime bugs, and production incidents.

When to Use

• Tests fail after a code change
• The build breaks
• Runtime behavior doesn't match expectations
• A bug report arrives
• An error appears in logs or console
• Something worked before and stopped working

The Stop-the-Line Rule

When anything unexpected happens: