Hands-On Debugging Toolkit

Overview

This skill is the toolbox — the concrete commands and techniques for investigating bugs across the full stack. Use alongside superpowers:systematic-debugging which provides the methodology (root cause → hypothesis → test → fix).

Core principle: Observe before guessing. Every hypothesis must be backed by evidence gathered from actual system state — logs, API responses, database rows, container health, browser console.

When to Use

• Application returns unexpected responses
• Service is down or unresponsive
• Data inconsistency between layers
• Frontend shows wrong state or errors
• Docker container crashes or won't start
• Integration between services is broken
• Performance degradation in production

Phase 1: Triage — Where Is the Bug?