rca-diagnostics

name	rca-diagnostics
description	Cross-system incident response and post-mortem Root Cause Analysis for data platforms. Use when: investigating MULTI-system failures, correlating failures across infra + data + code, writing post-mortem reports, or diagnosing cascading failures. Do NOT use for single Airflow DAG failures — use `debugging-dags` instead. Do NOT use for single dbt model errors — use `debugging-dbt-errors` instead.
license	MIT
metadata	{"author":"dataops-agent","version":"2.0.0"}

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Diagnostics

Cross-system incident response. For single Airflow DAG failures, use debugging-dags. For single dbt errors, use debugging-dbt-errors.

When to Apply

Use this skill when:

• Multiple pipelines or systems failed simultaneously (cascading failure)
• Correlating failures with infrastructure changes (deploys, config changes)
• Correlating failures with upstream data source changes
• Writing post-mortem / incident reports
• Investigating systemic reliability issues (recurring failures, intermittent errors)
• Analyzing patterns across multiple incident occurrences

Scope Boundaries

Task	Correct Skill
"My DAG failed, fix it"	debugging-dags
"dbt build failed with error"	debugging-dbt-errors
"3 pipelines broke after deploy"	this skill ✅
"Write a post-mortem for the outage"	this skill ✅
"Why do these errors keep recurring?"	this skill ✅

Best Practices

1. Methodical Tracing: Work backward from the point of failure to the source.
2. Holistic View: Look beyond the code (check infrastructure, upstream API changes, network timeouts).
3. Blameless Culture: Focus on systemic failures and how to prevent them in the future.
4. Actionable Fixes: Always provide a short-term mitigation and a long-term architectural fix.

Execution Pattern

1. Gather all available logs, error messages, and context from all affected systems.
2. Build a timeline of events leading to the incident.
3. Perform backward tracing to isolate the root cause.
4. Provide a clear explanation of why it failed.
5. Propose immediate remediation and long-term preventative measures.
6. Draft a post-mortem document if requested.