Debug a bug, test failure, crash, or unexpected behaviour by finding the root cause before changing anything, instead of guessing at fixes. Works in any language or stack. Use when something is broken, a test is failing, behaviour is wrong, or a previous fix didn't hold.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
Find the root cause before you touch a line of code. A fix that targets a symptom you don't understand either fails or moves the bug somewhere else, and each blind attempt makes the next one harder to reason about. Investigation first is not the slow path; it is the fast one.
## The one rule
**No fix before you can name the root cause.** If you can't say "the bug happens because X", you are still investigating, not fixing. The moment you feel "let me just try changing this and see": stop. That instinct is the thing this skill exists to interrupt.
This holds hardest exactly when it feels most skippable: under time pressure, when the bug "looks simple", when you've already tried two things. Simple bugs have root causes too, and guess-and-check is slower than it feels because every wrong attempt has to be unwound.
## Step 1: Investigate the root cause
Do all of this before forming any fix.
- **Read the actual error.** The full message, the full stack trace, line numbers, error codes. The answer is often already written there. Don't skim past it to the part you assume is the problem.
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The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260921.3a2f779, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_gnar4u355ceo6wtw
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=khaledsaeed18/dotclaude/systematic-debugging
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/ce3e1901780c0f6f5e98c68f9aa143cd3b33cbb7dc3eb6d89784d632baa04662
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
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