Five Whys Root Cause Analysis

Purpose

This skill enforces systematic root cause identification before solution attempts. Apply the five whys methodology to prevent speculation-driven debugging that wastes effort, creates harmful changes, and results in never-ending fix loops.

Core Problem

Claude Code's default behavior when encountering problems:

1. Observe symptom
2. Speculate about cause
3. Implement speculative fix
4. Fix doesn't work or creates new problems
5. Repeat indefinitely

Result: Wasted effort, potentially harmful changes, user frustration.

Five Whys Methodology