dot-skills Debugging Best Practices

Comprehensive debugging methodology guide for software engineers, containing 54 rules across 10 categories prioritized by impact. Based on research from Andreas Zeller's "Why Programs Fail" and academic debugging curricula.

Operational Loop

Use this loop before reaching for the detailed rules:

1. Build a fast, deterministic feedback loop that can fail on the reported bug.
2. Reproduce the user's symptom with that loop.
3. Write 3-5 ranked, falsifiable hypotheses before testing fixes.
4. Instrument the narrowest point that distinguishes those hypotheses.
5. Fix the cause, then add or preserve a regression test at the highest useful test boundary.
6. Re-run the original feedback loop and remove temporary debug instrumentation.

If no reliable loop can be built, stop and name exactly what evidence is missing: logs, trace payloads, a failing fixture, a screen recording, environment access, or a reproduction script. Do not guess without a loop.