Stop guessing at fixes. A 4-phase root-cause discipline (reproduce → isolate → hypothesize → verify) that forces your coding agent to find the real cause before touching code. The most-copied debugging skill in the Agent Skills ecosystem.
/systematic-debugging My checkout API returns 500, but only when two users pay at the same time
What you get
- A 4-phase root-cause protocol (reproduce, isolate, hypothesize, verify) your agent follows before writing any fix
- Rules that stop symptom fixes and speculative patches
- Techniques for flaky and intermittent failures
- Condition-based waiting patterns (with a TypeScript example)
Good fit
- Any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior
- Flaky tests and intermittent production issues
- Bugs that already survived one "quick fix"
Not for
- Greenfield feature work (use test-driven-development)
- Performance profiling (use diagnosing-bugs)
- Repository
- obra/superpowers
- Stars
- 0
- Category
- Coding
- Skills inside
- 1
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--- name: systematic-debugging description: Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes ---
Systematic Debugging
Overview
Core principle: ALWAYS find root cause before attempting fixes. Symptom fixes are failure.
**Violating the…
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Download & install
What's new: Initial SkillStack curated release: original MIT-licensed content repackaged as an install-ready ZIP with attribution.
Free for signed-in users.
1. Download the ZIP
Use the button above to download the packaged skill. It contains the SKILL.md plus all supporting files.
2. Unzip into your agent's skills folder
Extract the archive so that SKILL.md sits directly inside a folder named after the skill:
unzip systematic-debugging-v1.0.0.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/systematic-debugging/Skills folder per agent
- Claude Code
- ~/.claude/skills
- Cursor
- ~/.cursor/skills
- Codex
- ~/.codex/skills
- GitHub Copilot
- ~/.copilot/skills
3. Restart your agent
Your agent picks up the new skill automatically on next launch. Ask it what it can do.
Reviews
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