Systematic Debugging

Core Principle

NO FIXES WITHOUT ROOT CAUSE INVESTIGATION FIRST.

Never apply symptom-focused patches that mask underlying problems. Understand WHY something fails before attempting to fix it.

The Four-Phase Framework

Phase 1: Root Cause Investigation

Before touching any code:

1. Read error messages thoroughly - Every word matters
2. Reproduce the issue consistently - If you can't reproduce it, you can't verify a fix
3. Examine recent changes - What changed before this started failing?
4. Gather diagnostic evidence - Logs, stack traces, state dumps
5. Trace data flow - Follow the call chain to find where bad values originate