Debug Pattern — Context

Pattern: Debug
Component: context.md
Version: 1.1 | Updated: 2026-07-16

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Preconditions (must be true before activation)

• Expected behavior stated in one sentence
• Actual behavior stated (verbatim error when available)
• Environment named (dev / staging / prod / test)
• Logs, traces, metrics, or failing test available — or gap documented
• Permission to run reproducing experiments in a safe environment

Trigger conditions (apply the pattern)

Apply when any of the following hold:

• Spec or prior behavior is violated
• Failing test, stack trace, or error-budget burn
• Intermittent / race / environment-sensitive failure
• Previous quick fix failed or was reverted

Do not apply when

• Request is a new feature, not a defect
• Typo/syntax error with obvious single-line fix
• Pure third-party outage (document workaround; open vendor ticket)
• Containment still incomplete on SEV1 — stabilize first

Required inputs

Input	Source	Minimum quality
Symptom package	Ticket / user / alert	Expected, actual, when started
Repro notes	Author or on-call	Steps or “cannot repro”
Telemetry	Logs/traces/metrics	Correlated timestamps
Recent changes	git log / deploy board	Suspect window

Authority boundary

The debug agent may propose and implement root-cause fixes in non-prod and via PR. Production mutation, data export, and emergency rollbacks require the human on-call / incident commander.