investigate
Investigate walks you through a structured methodology to pinpoint what's causing bugs, test failures, build errors, and unexpected behavior. It cycles through characterization, isolation, hypothesis generation, and targeted testing—with escalation to deeper analysis when needed—to diagnose the root cause without applying fixes.
Investigate helps you find the root cause of bugs and test failures using a systematic four-step methodology.
AI-generated summary based on this skill's SKILL.md
Decision gist · record as of 2026-07-27
Investigate helps you find the root cause of bugs and test failures using a systematic four-step methodology. Investigate walks you through a structured methodology to pinpoint what's causing bugs, test failures, build errors, and unexpected behavior. It cycles through characterization, isolation, hypothesis generation, and targeted testing—with escalation to deeper analysis when needed—to diagnose the root cause without applying fixes.
Use it when
- Investigate helps you find the answer by systematically debugging and diagnosing unexpected behavior.
- Investigate uses a cyclic methodology: first characterize what's broken and how it fails.
Verify before relying
Read SKILL.md below before installing (2 files). Open directory: indexed for reading, not audited.
Install
tobihagemann/turbo/investigate · repository language: Shell
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Frequently asked questions
AI-generated answers based on this skill's SKILL.md and metadata
What does Investigate help me do?
Investigate walks you through a structured methodology to pinpoint what's causing bugs, test failures, build errors, and unexpected behavior. It cycles through characterization, isolation, hypothesis generation, and targeted testing—with escalation to deeper analysis when needed—to diagnose the root cause without applying fixes.
Why is my test failing?
Investigate helps you find the answer by systematically debugging and diagnosing unexpected behavior. The skill guides you through isolating the failure, characterizing its symptoms, generating hypotheses about the cause, and running targeted tests to confirm which one is correct—all before you attempt any fix.
How does Investigate help find the root cause of an error?
Investigate uses a cyclic methodology: first characterize what's broken and how it fails, then isolate which component or code path is responsible, form hypotheses about why it's happening, and test each hypothesis systematically. When standard approaches don't work, Investigate escalates to deeper analysis techniques.
Can Investigate troubleshoot intermittent or hard-to-reproduce failures?
Yes. Investigate is designed to handle intermittent and hard-to-reproduce failures by helping you systematically narrow down conditions, timing, and dependencies. It guides you through isolation and hypothesis testing to characterize the failure pattern and identify what triggers it.
Does Investigate investigate performance issues?
Investigate can help diagnose performance issues and slow responses by applying the same structured methodology: characterizing the slowness, isolating which component is the bottleneck, forming hypotheses about the cause, and testing them to confirm the root cause.
What is Investigate's license?
Investigate is licensed under the MIT license, which permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions.
SKILL.md
Rendered from the published skill. Quoted content, verbatim.
Investigate
Systematic methodology for finding the root cause of bugs, failures, and unexpected behavior. Cycle through characterize-isolate-hypothesize-test steps, with oracle escalation for hard problems. Diagnose the root cause — do not apply fixes.
Optional: $ARGUMENTS contains the problem description or error message.
Step 1: Characterize
Gather the symptom and establish what is actually happening:
- Collect evidence — error message, stack trace, test output, log entries, or user description of unexpected behavior
- Classify the problem type:
| Signal | Type |
|---|---|
| Stack trace / exception | Runtime error |
| Test assertion |
(truncated - see the full file via the links below)
File tree — 2 files
claude/skills/investigate/SKILL.md
claude/skills/investigate/references/problem-type-playbooks.md
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Related skills
Investigate walks you through structured bug diagnosis, starting with hypothesis generation and moving through code inspection, data flow tracing, and controlled experiments to isolate the root cause. It focuses on finding and explaining problems rather than fixing them, and escalates to diagnostic logging only when code inspection alone cannot pinpoint the issue.
Debug Investigator replaces ad-hoc troubleshooting with structured investigation: capture symptoms, build a reproducible feedback loop, analyze evidence from stacktraces and logs, generate ranked hypotheses, and design bisection strategies. Use it for non-obvious bugs—intermittent failures, performance regressions, or issues requiring systematic root cause analysis—where native debugging falls short.
Parallel Debugging applies the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses methodology to organize multi-agent investigation of complex issues. It structures hypothesis generation across six failure mode categories, establishes evidence collection standards with citation requirements, and provides arbitration protocols to identify root causes while avoiding confirmation bias.
Investigate guides you through a disciplined five-phase debugging process: collect evidence, form ranked hypotheses, verify each one methodically, apply a minimal fix only after confirming root cause, then verify resolution. The workflow prevents guess-and-fix cycles by enforcing evidence gathering before hypothesis formation and a three-strike rule that forces re-collection rather than endless speculation.
Investigate guides you through structured debugging in five phases, from evidence collection to verified fix. It enforces the Iron Law principle—never fix without a confirmed root cause—using pattern analysis, hypothesis testing with a 3-strike escalation rule, and regression coverage. Output includes a machine-readable debug report with the full evidence chain.
Debugging Protocol teaches a disciplined four-phase investigation process that enforces root cause analysis before any code change. It prevents the common trap of jumping to fixes without understanding why problems exist, using the Iron Law (investigate first) and Three Strikes Rule (escalate after three failed attempts) to guide systematic problem-solving.
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