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investigate-first

Diagnose ambiguous failures before editing. Use for unknown causes, intermittent behavior, performance regressions, or investigations needing evidence-ranked hypotheses.

Published by JuliusBrussee ↗JuliusBrussee/caveman

Try your first task

Diagnose one unexplained failure

Start a fresh conversation.

Use investigate-first to diagnose the single failure I describe in this repository. Separate observations from inferred causes, trace the relevant inputs and state transitions, and rank hypotheses by evidence and cheap ways to falsify them. Stop when you can report a credible cause with proof or the exact blocker. Do not edit product code or implement a fix.

Required inputs

  • Access to the affected repository.
  • The observed failure, reproduction steps if available, and relevant error output or logs.

Suggested template by Skill Leaderboard, grounded in the linked source. Task evidence ↗

SKILL.md

name: investigate-firstdescription: Diagnose ambiguous failures before editing. Use for unknown causes, intermittent behavior, performance regressions, or investigations needing evidence-ranked hypotheses.

Investigate first

Gather evidence before changing product code.

  • Separate observed symptom from inferred cause.
  • Trace inputs, state transitions, ownership boundaries, and failure output.
  • Rank hypotheses by evidence and cheap falsification value.
  • Do not edit until one credible mechanism explains evidence.
  • Stop exploration when evidence is sufficient to name cause or exact blocker.

Report cause and proof. Make no fix unless task authorizes implementation.