Systematic Debugging

Overview

Random fixes waste time and create new bugs. Quick patches mask underlying issues.

Core principle: Investigate before guessing and separate a verified repair from a temporary mitigation. During an incident, an authorized rollback or containment action may restore service while root-cause work continues.

Violating the letter of this process is violating the spirit of debugging.

The Iron Law

NO FIXES WITHOUT ROOT CAUSE INVESTIGATION FIRST

Start with the observable failure and the smallest useful evidence check. Label any emergency mitigation explicitly and preserve evidence for the later root-cause investigation.