Bug triage

Establish scope

1. Read repository instructions and inspect the current branch, status, and relevant diff.
2. Determine whether the user asked only for diagnosis or also authorized a fix.
3. Inspect available errors, logs, tests, and code before asking for missing details.
4. Record expected behavior, actual behavior, environment, frequency, and last known good state when they affect the investigation.

Reproduce and isolate

1. Use the smallest reliable reproduction. Preserve the original failure output.
2. If the failure is intermittent, control time, randomness, concurrency, data, and retries one variable at a time.
3. Trace the failing path end to end. Search every caller of the function or component before editing it.
4. Form a falsifiable hypothesis and run the narrowest check that can confirm or reject it.
5. Use history or git bisect only when a regression boundary will materially shorten the search.

Separate these outcomes explicitly: