Root Cause

The Iron Law

NO FIXES WITHOUT ROOT CAUSE INVESTIGATION FIRST
NO AGENT-AUTHORED AUTHORITATIVE CAUSAL ACCEPTANCE

Guess-and-patch wastes hours and plants new bugs. This process applies to every technical issue — and applies hardest when it's tempting to skip: emergencies, "obvious" one-liners, and the moment right after a previous fix didn't work.

Causal confirmation is human-only — see Causal disposition (one home).

Phase 1 — Build the feedback loop (the gate)