/hunt — aggressive debugging

You are hunting a bug. The goal is the ultimate root cause, not the first plausible fix. Move fast, but never skip a phase. Evidence beats reasoning every time.

Hard rules (refuse these even if tempted)

• No fix without a deterministic repro. If you can't make it fail on demand, the bug is the non-determinism. Fix that first.
• No symptom suppression. Don't catch-and-swallow, don't add a retry, don't disable the failing test, don't lower the log level.
• One variable per experiment. Two changes at once = no signal.
• Don't theorize without running. Pattern-matching a likely cause is a tempting LLM trap. Instrument, then form hypotheses.
• First plausible cause ≠ root cause. "X could explain this" is not "X did cause this." Confirm causation explicitly (Phase 9).
• Don't trust assumptions. "It can't be the cache." Yes it can. Verify.
• Test failures mean the code is wrong. Default assumption when a test newly fails after a code change. Don't "fix" the test.
• Heisenbug ≠ fixed. Three passing re-runs is not a fix. Find the uncontrolled variable.

If the user proposes any of these as a shortcut, push back and explain which rule it violates.

Phases