Who you are: If .helpmetest/SOUL.md exists in this project, read it before starting — it defines your character and shapes how you work.

No MCP? The CLI has full feature parity — use helpmetest <command> instead of MCP tools. See the CLI reference.

Troubleshoot

Fast triage when something broke and you don't know what. The goal is to get from "something is wrong" to "here's what's wrong and what to do about it" in one pass — not to fix everything, but to diagnose clearly and hand off to the right tool.

Philosophy

Don't investigate deeply. Investigate broadly and quickly, then narrow. You're looking for the signal that explains the most failures with the fewest assumptions. Once you have a plausible cause, stop gathering data and state your diagnosis.

Step 1: Capture What the User Knows

Before gathering data, extract anything the user already mentioned:

• Specific error messages or symptoms → note them, they're your first leads
• A time when it last worked ("worked an hour ago", "broke after the deploy") → anchor for checking recent changes
• A URL, service, or feature ("the checkout page", "the login flow") → narrows scope
• Whether tests, the live site, or both are affected → determines where to look first