- name
- trace
- description
- Evidence-driven tracing with competing hypotheses in parallel. Activate when user says: trace this, trace, why did this happen, root cause analysis, investigate why.
- argument-hint
- <observation to trace>
# Trace
Evidence-driven causal tracing using competing hypotheses. Use for ambiguous, causal, evidence-heavy questions where the goal is to explain WHY something happened.
## Good Entry Cases
- Runtime bugs and regressions
- Performance / latency behavior
- Architecture / premortem / postmortem analysis
- Config / routing / orchestration behavior
- "Given this output, trace back the likely causes"
## Core Contract
Always preserve: Observation → Hypotheses → Evidence For → Evidence Against → Best Explanation → Critical Unknown → Discriminating Probe
## Workflow
1. Restate the observed result precisely
2. Generate 3 deliberately different hypotheses:
- Code-path / implementation cause
- Config / environment / orchestration cause
- Measurement / artifact / assumption mismatch
3. Assign @tracer to each hypothesis lane
4. Each lane: evidence for, evidence against, critical unknown, discriminating probe
5. Apply lenses: Systems, Premortem, Science
6. Rebuttal round between top two hypotheses
7. Rank, detect convergence, synthesize
## Output
```
### Observed Result
[What happened]
### Ranked Hypotheses
| Rank | Hypothesis | Confidence | Evidence Strength |
|------|------------|------------|-------------------|
### Most Likely Explanation
[Current best explanation]
### Critical Unknown
[Single missing fact]
### Recommended Discriminating Probe
[Single next probe]
```
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