root-cause-analysis

Installation
SKILL.md

Root Cause Analysis Skill

If you fixed it but it came back, you fixed a symptom.

Core Principle

Every symptom has a cause. Every cause has a deeper cause. Keep digging until you reach something you can prevent, not just fix.

5 Whys — Extended Example

# Question Answer
1 Why did the page crash? JavaScript threw a TypeError on null
2 Why was the value null? The API returned an empty response
3 Why did the API return empty? The database query timed out
4 Why did the query time out? Missing index on a 10M-row table
5 Why was the index missing? No performance review in the PR process

Root cause: Process gap (no performance review), not the missing index.

Related skills
Installs
1
First Seen
Mar 10, 2026