debugging-strategies

name	debugging-strategies
description	Systematic debugging: stack trace analysis, log-based diagnosis, bisecting regressions, memory leak detection, and profiling.
metadata	{"thinkfleetbot":{"emoji":"🐛","requires":{"anyBins":["git","node","python3"]}}}

Debugging Strategies

Systematic approaches to finding and fixing bugs.

Stack Trace Analysis

Read the trace bottom-up

The bottom of a stack trace is the most recent call — start there.

# Node.js — get full stack traces
NODE_OPTIONS="--stack-trace-limit=50" node app.js

# Python — verbose traceback
python3 -u -X tracemalloc app.py

Common patterns

• TypeError: Cannot read property of undefined → Check the object one level up in the chain
• ECONNREFUSED → Service isn't running or wrong port
• ENOMEM → Memory exhaustion, check for leaks
• Segfault → Native addon or buffer overflow

Log-Based Debugging

# Tail logs with filtering
tail -f app.log | grep -E "ERROR|WARN"

# Search recent logs for pattern
grep -n "error" app.log | tail -20

# Correlate by request ID
grep "req-abc123" app.log


docker logs --since 5m --follow myapp 2>&1 | grep -i error


kubectl logs -l app=myapp --since=10m | grep -i 


kubectl logs -l app=myapp --all-containers --prefix --since=5m