Fix Root Causes When debugging, do not paper over symptoms. Trace every problem to its root cause and fix it there. Why: Symptom fixes accumulate. Each workaround makes the system harder to reason about, and the real bug remains. Root-cause fixes are slower upfront but reduce total debugging time. Pattern: - Reproduce first (if you can't reproduce it, you can't verify your fix) - Ask "why" until you hit the root cause - Resist the urge to add guards (adding a nil check to silence a crash is a symptom fix) - Check for the pattern, not just the instance (grep for the same pattern, fix all insta…