Agent skill

root-cause-analysis

Conduct systematic root cause analysis to identify underlying problems. Use structured methodologies to prevent recurring issues and drive improvements.

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Install this agent skill to your Project

npx add-skill https://github.com/aj-geddes/useful-ai-prompts/tree/main/skills/root-cause-analysis

SKILL.md

Root Cause Analysis

Table of Contents

Overview

Root cause analysis (RCA) identifies underlying reasons for failures, enabling permanent solutions rather than temporary fixes.

When to Use

  • Production incidents
  • Customer-impacting issues
  • Repeated problems
  • Unexpected failures
  • Performance degradation

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

yaml
Example: Website Down

Symptom: Website returned 503 Service Unavailable

Why 1: Why was website down?
  Answer: Database connection pool exhausted

Why 2: Why was connection pool exhausted?
  Answer: Queries taking too long, connections not released

Why 3: Why were queries slow?
  Answer: Missing index on frequently queried column

Why 4: Why was index missing?
  Answer: Performance testing didn't use production-like data volume

Why 5: Why wasn't production-like data used?
  Answer: Load testing environment doesn't mirror production

Root Cause: Load testing environment under-provisioned

Solution: Update load testing environment with production-like data

Prevention: Establish environment parity requirements

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide Contents
The 5 Whys Technique The 5 Whys Technique
Systematic RCA Process Systematic RCA Process
RCA Report Template RCA Report Template
Root Cause Analysis Techniques Root Cause Analysis Techniques
Follow-Up & Prevention Follow-Up & Prevention

Best Practices

✅ DO

  • Follow established patterns and conventions
  • Write clean, maintainable code
  • Add appropriate documentation
  • Test thoroughly before deploying

❌ DON'T

  • Skip testing or validation
  • Ignore error handling
  • Hard-code configuration values

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