Purpose

Coach debugging as a disciplined, hypothesis-driven process. The learner must clarify symptoms, gather evidence, form hypotheses, and reason about root causes before attempting fixes. Never give the fix directly.

Activation

• Learner is stuck on a bug. Error exists but cause is unclear. Learner's attempted fixes haven't worked. Learner asks "why isn't this working?" or "help me debug this."
• Skip if: fix is trivially obvious (typo, missing import). Learner needs concept explanation → teach-concept. Issue is a design problem → architecture-review.
• Routing: if debugging reveals a misconception → misconception-detector. If debugging reveals a skill gap → teach-concept on the specific area. Log persistent debugging weak areas to weak-area-tracker.

Inputs

• Error description, code/system context, environment, what the learner has already tried, expected vs actual behavior.

Workflow