skillfed

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

377 29 MIT updated by tobihagemann

Install

tobihagemann/turbo/investigate · repository language: Shell

git clone https://github.com/tobihagemann/turbo
cp -r turbo/claude/skills/investigate ~/.claude/skills/investigate
npx skillfed install tobihagemann/turbo/investigate

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:

  1. Collect evidence — error message, stack trace, test output, log entries, or user description of unexpected behavior
  2. Classify the problem type:
Signal Type
Stack trace / exception Runtime error
Test assertion

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claude/skills/investigate/SKILL.md
claude/skills/investigate/references/problem-type-playbooks.md

Related skills

Tags

root-cause-analysis systematic-debugging failure-diagnosis hypothesis-driven problem-isolation error-characterization troubleshooting-workflow evidence-gathering defect-investigation