How hard it is to find out why something broke — whether the system helps a developer localize a failure or forces guesswork.
Free & open · no signup · read-only — it ends by asking · nothing leaves your machine
You are working inside this repo. Mission: judge how quickly a developer can go from "something is wrong" to "here is exactly why" — whether the code, logs, and tooling localize a failure or leave you guessing.
Read-only pass. Read logging, error handling, and observability setup; trace a real recent failure if you can. Change nothing but the report file.
Phase 2 sweeps the codebase through every one of these, citing file and line for each finding.
can a reported bug be reproduced locally; seed data, fixtures, a way to replay
logs present, structured, and at a level that lets you trace a failure
do errors carry inputs, ids, and a stack, or vanish into a generic message
do production errors point back to real code
request ids and tracing to follow one operation across layers or services
breakpoints, a REPL, running a single failing path in isolation
can you see the data and state at the moment of failure
One structured report at the repo root — or in reports/, if you keep one — the same shape every time, ready for a teammate — or the optional Studio — to act on.
Every Goal Prompt follows the same four steps, so results are consistent and repeatable — no matter which one you run.
Pick a plausible failure (or a real recent bug) and try to diagnose it using only what the system provides.
Reproducibility — can a reported bug be reproduced locally.
Rank by how much each gap slows a real diagnosis, weighted by how often that area breaks.
Create DEBUG.md at repo root.
Copy it and paste it into your agent inside the repo you want checked.
Install the goal plugin once — two commands — then just type /goal:debuggability.
/plugin marketplace add GhostlyGawd/goal-prompts/plugin install goal@goal-promptsOr install only this Goal Prompt as /goal-debuggability:
curl -fsSL https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/install | BRIEF=95 shLet an agent fetch it mid-conversation, or pull the raw Goal Prompt by URL.
https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/raw/95.mdNothing hidden — this is the whole Goal Prompt, verbatim. Read it in a minute, edit it, or copy it as-is.
# Goal: Debuggability Audit You are working inside this repo. Mission: judge how quickly a developer can go from "something is wrong" to "here is exactly why" — whether the code, logs, and tooling localize a failure or leave you guessing. Read-only pass. Read logging, error handling, and observability setup; trace a real recent failure if you can. Change nothing but the report file. ## Phase 1 — Diagnose something - Pick a plausible failure (or a real recent bug) and try to diagnose it using only what the system provides. - Note where you could see what happened and where the trail went cold. - Check what a developer would reach for first: logs, a stack trace, a reproduction. ## Phase 2 — Audit through 7 lenses 1. **Reproducibility** — can a reported bug be reproduced locally; seed data, fixtures, a way to replay 2. **Developer logging** — logs present, structured, and at a level that lets you trace a failure 3. **Error context** — do errors carry inputs, ids, and a stack, or vanish into a generic message 4. **Stack traces & source maps** — do production errors point back to real code 5. **Correlation** — request ids and tracing to follow one operation across layers or services 6. **Local debugging** — breakpoints, a REPL, running a single failing path in isolation 7. **State inspection** — can you see the data and state at the moment of failure ## Phase 3 — Curate - Rank by how much each gap slows a real diagnosis, weighted by how often that area breaks. - For each, name the instrumentation that would have made the failure obvious. - Separate "add logging" from "the design hides state"; flag the structural ones. ## Phase 4 — Report Create `DEBUG.md` at repo root: 1. **A diagnosis, walked** — tracing a real failure, and where the trail went cold 2. **Findings** — each: gap · location · how it slows diagnosis · the fix 3. **Instrumentation plan** — the logs, ids, and hooks that would make failures self-explaining 4. **Quick wins** — the two changes that most improve time-to-root-cause Start the report with today's date. If `DEBUG.md` already exists from a previous run, read it first and lead with what changed since. ## Rules - Judge the path to root cause, not the presence of a logger - Context at the point of failure beats a wall of logs after it - No runtime code to debug in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding. - If a `reports/` directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root. - Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words - Report only — end by asking which debuggability gaps to close first
reports/ directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.Duplication, tangles, and dead patterns — mapped as interest paid vs principal owed, with a refactor sequence that pays for itself.
Walk clone → install → run → change → PR like a brand-new developer and log every stumble on the way to a first contribution.
Census the drifted colors, spacing, and duplicate components; propose the token set and migration order to unify them.
Can a coding agent work here? Entry files, one-command checks, discoverable conventions, and a mechanical definition of done — audited by attempting the work.
Runs inside these playbooks — curated sequences you can launch with one paste: