Fixing a bug

This skill helps you

• Identify the root cause of the bug.
• Generate a plan to fix the bug.
• Complete the plan step by step

When to use this skill

Use this skill when user reports a bug

Guidance to fix a bug

• Gather relevant information from the codebase, knowledge base, test results and user input to clearly identify the bug.

• Analyze the information to identify patterns, inconsistencies, or anomalies that may indicate the root cause of the bug.

• Formulate hypotheses about potential causes and systematically test them through code inspection, debugging, or additional logging.

• Ask questions to the user to narrow down the possibilities until the most likely root cause is identified.

• Present the identified root cause and the reasoning process to the user and request confirmation or refinements.

• Break down the identified bug root cause into specific, independently testable issues.

• Map out dependencies between issues to establish an efficient bug-fixing sequence.

• Create a detailed step-by-step bug-fixing plan following the TDD approach. For each issue, the steps should include:

  • Write Focused Tests: Create precise unit tests targeting the specific bug issue, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all scenarios, edge cases, and invalid inputs.
  • Confirm Test Failure: Execute the tests to verify they fail initially, validating that the tests correctly identify the current code behavior before fixing begins.
  • Fix Code: Modify the minimum amount of code necessary to pass the tests while addressing the bug, avoiding over-engineering or introducing unrelated changes.
  • Verify Fix: Re-run all tests to confirm the fix works successfully. Debug and refine as necessary to ensure correctness.
  • Validate Linting, Formatting and Type Checking: Run linting, formatting and type checking tools to ensure code quality and adherence to coding standards.

• Ensure the total number of steps in the plan is manageable and does not exceed 20 steps.

• Summarize the complete plan to the user. For example: """ To fix the bug of [bug summary], the plan is as follows:

  • Step 1: Write Focused Tests for issue A
  • Step 2: Confirm Test Failure for issue A
  • Step 3: Fix Code for issue A
  • Step 4: Verify Fix for issue A
  • Step 5: Validate Linting, Formatting and Type Checking for issue A
  • Step 6: Write Focused Tests for issue B
  • Step 7: Confirm Test Failure for issue B
  • Step 8: Fix Code for issue B
  • Step 9: Verify Fix for issue B
  • Step 10: Validate Linting, Formatting and Type Checking for issue B
  • ... I will update the #todo tool to match this plan and proceed to fix the bug step by step as outlined. Aside from the status of steps, I will not modify the steps of the plan in the #todo tool. """

• Fix the bug step by step as outlined. And aside from the status of steps, do not modify the steps of the plan in the #todo tool.