root-causelisted

# Root Cause - Post-Hoc Causal-Chain Analysis Something already happened. The fire is out, the immediate failure is understood. Now trace the symptom back through an evidence-backed causal chain to the systemic cause the team can actually change. ## Quick Start 1. State the symptom in specific, observable terms (with timestamp/scope) 2. Build the why-chain — every link cites evidence, branches allowed 3. Stop at a changeable systemic cause, then challenge the constraint that produced it 4. Emit the output contract: causal chain table, contributing factors, fix targets ## Not This Skill | Situation | Use instead | |-----------|-------------| | System is failing right now | troubleshooting-investigator | | Understanding a working system | deep-dive | | Writing the postmortem document | premortem-postmortem (which calls this skill for causal analysis) | ## Techniques ### Evidence-Backed Five Whys Chain backward from symptom to systemic cause. Every "why" answer must cite evidence — a log line, code path, config value, data record, or timeline fact. Narrative answers without evidence are rejected and recorded as assumptions, not links. Read [cookbook/five-whys.md](./cookbook/five-whys.md) ### Constraint Challenge (First Principles) Once the chain reaches a systemic cause, identify the inherited assumption or constraint that produced it and test whether it still holds. This is where "fix the bug" becomes "fix the system that made the bug inevitable". Read [cookbook/first