Apply when debugging. Trace each symptom to its root cause and fix it there; reproduce first, ask why until you reach it, resist nil-check guards that silence crashes.
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
# Fix Root Causes
When debugging, do not paper over symptoms. Trace every problem to its root cause and fix it there.
**Why:** Symptom fixes accumulate. Each workaround makes the system harder to reason about without fixing the bug. Root-cause fixes are slower upfront but reduce total debugging time.
**Pattern:**
- Reproduce first (if you can't reproduce it, you can't verify your fix)
- Ask "why" until you hit the root cause
- Resist the urge to add guards (adding a nil check to silence a crash is a symptom fix)
- If a workaround needs a paragraph-long comment to justify it, the code is wrong (fix the code, not the comment)
- Check for the pattern, not just the instance (grep for the same pattern, fix all instances)
- When stuck, instrument. Don't guess (add logging, read the actual error)
**Restart bugs: suspect state before code**
Code doesn't change between runs. State does. When something "fails after restart," suspect stale persistent state first: config files, caches, lock files, serialized state. If clearing a state file restores behavior, prioritize state validation as the fix.
The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260827.04830a9, 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_sf7qjtcsjjkiqzj7
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=painhardcore/pstack/principle-fix-root-causes
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/878ce35bd190ebb5ba17435c35fd4287b9e7028c48d4c9c4644d662552475962
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