Stage 6 · Lesson 1 of 6
Reproduce, then shrink the problem
Before asking anyone, human or AI, to fix a bug, find the exact steps, input and environment that make it happen every time. A reliable reproduction, or , turns "it sometimes breaks" into a failing test, and without one nobody can prove a fix worked.
Then shrink it: remove everything unrelated until you have the smallest code and data that still show the bug, a . Shrinking often reveals the cause by itself, and a small repro fits in the without noise. For intermittent bugs, note what varies: timing, data, order, environment.
Common trappasting "it doesn't work" with a screenshot, getting back a confident guess, and applying it without knowing whether it fixed anything.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it
Resources for this stage
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- CourseFreeThe Missing Semester of Your CS Education
MIT · Beginner
MIT's free lecture on debugging and profiling covers logging, debuggers and tools you will use for years