Before using this method, read the knowledge and team rules: project knowledge comes from team-knowledge (tw brief).

Diagnosing Bugs

A discipline for hard bugs. Skip phases only when explicitly justified.

Before exploring, run tw brief with the affected paths to read the glossary, rules, decisions and lessons; use tw read when an excerpt is not enough.

Redact

This skill has you show commands, outputs and captured artifacts. Redact every secret first: write <REDACTED> in its place. Build loops against env vars, so the credential stays in the environment rather than in what you show. Captured artifacts carry auth headers: quote only the lines that carry the signal.

If the redacted output is not enough to diagnose the bug, say so and ask the user.

Phase 1: Build a feedback loop

This is the skill. Everything else is mechanical. If you have a tight pass/fail signal for the bug (one that goes red on this bug), you will find the cause; bisection, hypothesis-testing, and instrumentation all just consume it. If you don't have one, no amount of staring at code will save you.