Why

Investigate the motivation and intent behind code. Why was it built this way? What edge cases were considered? What product, business, or operational constraints shaped the design? What alternatives were rejected, and why?

Companion to the how skill. how answers what the code does and how it works. why answers what forces led to its shape.

How this skill works

Historical context spreads across seven evidence categories: source control history, issue or ticket tracking, long-form documents, real-time team chat, infrastructure observability, error or exception tracking, and product analytics warehouses. Discover the connectors, MCPs, apps, and local tools available at run time, map them to categories, then investigate at a depth proportional to the question. A narrow repository-history question with direct evidence may need only source control and linked records; a broad, high-stakes, contradictory, or weakly documented question warrants every relevant available category. Null results from searched categories are first-class evidence; report them alongside positive findings.

Operating Posture

Operate as a careful, cautious, precise investigator. Think like a detective piecing together a historical case from fragmentary records. When the record is thin, say so.

Concretely: