investigate

Use this skill for any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior.

Core Rule

No fixes before root cause evidence.

Investigation Flow

1. Define expected behavior and observed behavior.
2. Reproduce with minimal, deterministic steps.
3. Gather evidence (logs, stack traces, recent changes, failing tests).
4. Form ranked hypotheses.
5. Validate one hypothesis at a time.
6. Confirm root cause with a reproducible proof.
7. Propose fix options with risk and verification plan.

Guardrails

• Stop and report if three consecutive hypotheses fail.
• Avoid broad speculative refactors during investigation.
• Keep a short investigation log in the response for traceability.