SKILL.md
Root Cause Analysis
Table of Contents
- [Overview](#overview)
- [When to Use](#when-to-use)
- [Quick Start](#quick-start)
- [Reference Guides](#reference-guides)
- [Best Practices](#best-practices)
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:
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 requirementsReference Guides
Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:
| Guide | Contents |
|---|---|
| [The 5 Whys Technique](references/the-5-whys-technique.md) | The 5 Whys Technique |
| [Systematic RCA Process](references/systematic-rca-process.md) | Systematic RCA Process |
| [RCA Report Template](references/rca-report-template.md) | RCA Report Template |
| [Root Cause Analysis Techniques](references/root-cause-analysis-techniques.md) | Root Cause Analysis Techniques |
| [Follow-Up & Prevention](references/follow-up-prevention.md) | 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