33-galaxy-dawn-claude-scholar-skills-bug-detective

brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-SkillsDeveloper ToolsAudit pendingSnapshot 5d611cbda5db

Summary

This source did not publish a separate summary. Review SKILL.md before using the skill.

SKILL.md

Bug Detective

A systematic debugging workflow for investigating and resolving code errors, exceptions, and failures. Provides structured debugging methods and common error pattern recognition.

Core Philosophy

Debugging is a scientific problem-solving process that requires:

Understand the problem - Clearly define symptoms and expected behavior
Gather evidence - Collect error messages, logs, stack traces
Form hypotheses - Infer possible causes based on evidence
Verify hypotheses - Confirm or eliminate causes through experiments
Resolve the issue - Apply fixes and verify

Debugging Workflow

Step 1: Understand the Problem

Before starting to debug, clarify the following information:

Required information to collect:

Complete error message content
Exact location of the error (filename and line number)
Reproduction steps (how to trigger the error)
Expected behavior vs actual behavior
Environment info (OS, versions, dependencies)

Question template:

1. What is the exact error message?
2. Which file and line does the error occur at?
3. How can this issue be reproduced? Provide detailed steps.
4. What was the expected result? What actually happened?
5. What recent changes might have introduced this issue?

Step 2: Analyze Error Type

Choose a debugging strategy based on error type:

Error Type	Characteristics	Debugging Method
Syntax Error	Code cannot be parsed	Check syntax, bracket matching, quotes

Hypothesis: [problem description] causes [error phenomenon]

Verification steps:
1. [verification method 1]
2. [verification method 2]

Expected results:
- If hypothesis is correct: [expected phenomenon]
- If hypothesis is wrong: [expected phenomenon]

# ❌ No spaces allowed in assignment
name = "John"  # Error: tries to run 'name' command

# ✅ Correct assignment
name="John"

# ❌ Missing spaces in conditional test
if[$name -eq 1]; then  # Error

# ✅ Correct
if [ $name -eq 1 ]; then

# ❌ Variables not expanded inside single quotes
echo 'The value is $var'  # Output: The value is $var

# ✅ Use double quotes
echo "The value is $var"  # Output: The value is actual_value

# ❌ Using backticks for command substitution (confusing)
result=`command`

# ✅ Use $()
result=$(command)

# ❌ Unquoted variable, empty value causes errors
rm -rf $dir/*  # If dir is empty, deletes all files in current directory

# ✅ Always quote variables
[ -n "$dir" ] && rm -rf "$dir"/*

# Or use set -u to prevent undefined variables
set -u  # or set -o nounset

# ❌ Pipe creates subshell, outer variable unchanged
cat file.txt | while read line; do
    count=$((count + 1))  # Outer count won't change
done
echo "Total: $count"  # Outputs 0

# ✅ Use process substitution or redirection
while read line; do
    count=$((count + 1))
done < file.txt
echo "Total: $count"  # Correct output

# ❌ Incorrect array access
arr=(1 2 3)
echo $arr[1]  # Outputs 1[1]

# ✅ Correct array access
echo ${arr[1]}  # Outputs 2
echo ${arr[@]}  # Outputs all elements
echo ${#arr[@]} # Outputs array length

# ✅ Use `=` inside POSIX `[` tests and `==` inside Bash `[[ ]]` tests
if [ "$name" = "John" ]; then
if [[ "$name" == "John" ]]; then

# ❌ Using -eq for numeric comparison instead of =
if [ $age = 18 ]; then  # Wrong

# ✅ Use arithmetic operators for numeric comparison
if [ $age -eq 18 ]; then
if (( age == 18 )); then

# ❌ Execution continues after command failure
cd /nonexistent
rm file.txt  # Deletes file.txt in current directory

# ✅ Use set -e to exit on error
set -e  # or set -o errexit
cd /nonexistent  # Script exits here
rm file.txt

# Or check if command succeeded
cd /nonexistent || exit 1

python -m pdb script.py
pytest -x -vv tests/test_target.py

node --inspect-brk app.js
node --trace-warnings app.js

git bisect start
git bisect bad
git bisect good <known-good-commit>

# Run script in debug mode
bash -x script.sh  # Print each command
bash -v script.sh  # Print command source
bash -n script.sh  # Syntax check, no execution

# Enable debugging within a script
set -x  # Enable command tracing
set -v  # Enable verbose mode
set -e  # Exit on error
set -u  # Error on undefined variables
set -o pipefail  # Fail if any command in pipe fails

33-galaxy-dawn-claude-scholar-skills-bug-detective

Summary

Bug Detective

Core Philosophy

Debugging Workflow

Step 1: Understand the Problem

Step 2: Analyze Error Type

Step 3: Locate the Problem Source

Step 4: Form and Verify Hypotheses

Step 5: Apply Fix

Python Common Error Patterns

1. Indentation Errors

2. Mutable Default Arguments

3. Closure Issues in Loops

4. Modifying a List While Iterating

5. Using is for String Comparison

6. Forgetting to Call super().__init__()

JavaScript/TypeScript Common Error Patterns

1. this Binding Issues

2. Async Error Handling

3. Object Reference Comparison

Bash/Zsh Common Error Patterns

1. Spacing Issues

2. Quoting Issues

3. Unquoted Variables

4. Variable Scope in Loops

5. Array Operations

6. String Comparison

7. Command Failure Continues Execution

Common Debugging Commands

Python pdb Debugger

Node.js Inspector

Git Bisect

Bash Debugging

Preventive Debugging

1. Use Type Checking

2. Input Validation

3. Defensive Programming

4. Logging

Debugging Checklist

Before Starting

During Debugging

After Resolution

Additional Resources

Reference Files

Example Files

Related skills

5. Using `is` for String Comparison

6. Forgetting to Call `super().init()`

1. `this` Binding Issues