Systematic Debugging

Overview

Apply a structured four-phase debugging workflow -- Reproduce, Isolate, Root-cause, Verify -- to systematically find and fix bugs. This approach prevents shotgun debugging (randomly changing things) and ensures the fix addresses the root cause, not just the symptoms.

Workflow

Phase 1: Reproduce

Before fixing anything, confirm the bug exists and capture the exact conditions.

1. Understand the report -- From $ARGUMENTS and conversation context, extract:
   • What is the expected behavior?
   • What is the actual behavior?
   • What are the steps to reproduce?
   • In what environment does it occur (browser, OS, Node version, etc.)?
   • How consistently does it reproduce (always, intermittently, only under load)?