Work out why it is broken

For Claude Code, Cursor, the command line, a chat window.

The prompt

Something is failing and I do not know why.

What I expected: {{EXPECTED}}
What happened: {{ACTUAL}}

<error>
{{FULL_ERROR}}
</error>

<code>
{{CODE}}
</code>

Give me three candidate causes, ranked by likelihood, and for each one:
- Why it would produce exactly this symptom.
- The single cheapest thing I can do to confirm or rule it out.

Do not suggest a fix until I tell you which one it was.

What to fill in

Placeholder	What goes there
{{EXPECTED}}	the job finishes in under a minute
{{ACTUAL}}	it hangs after about 30 seconds
{{FULL_ERROR}}	the entire stack trace, not the last line
{{CODE}}	the function and what calls it

Why it works

Three ranked candidates beat one confident answer, because the ranking is useful even when the top guess is wrong — it tells you where to look next.

Pasting the full error rather than the last line is the most common difference between a useful answer and a generic one.

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