Investigate — Root Cause Analysis Engine

Systematic deep investigation protocol. Finds the REAL cause, not the surface symptom.

Core principle: Never fix what you don't understand. Every fix must trace to a proven root cause with evidence.

Pre-Flight Gate

• Unconditional: user typed /investigate or asked to find a root cause.
• Conditional self-judge: run only for a real bug / unexpected behavior whose root cause is UNKNOWN.
• ABORT: a bug whose cause is already known (just fix it), a feature request, an obvious-cause config/syntax error, or anything not actually broken.

Gate: Explicit invocation, or a genuine unknown-cause defect. Otherwise fix directly.

Protocol

Process every /investigate invocation through these 8 phases in strict order. Never skip a phase. Never jump to Phase 7 (FIX) without completing Phases 1-6.