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AgentCompany/builtin-skills/basic-for-all/systematic-debugging/test-pressure-3.md
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ZacharyZhang-NY e74dafcd36 Silence render-disposed spam, unbreak bundled skills, drop board wake
Three independently ugly bugs that all fed the same log flood:

* Electron's `WebFrameMain.send` writes every "Render frame was disposed"
  to stderr via `console.error`. When the worker fans a second
  agent-event past a reloading renderer, we produced thousands of
  identical lines and stalled the main loop on stderr I/O. Added a
  `mainFrame.detached` guard so the send is short-circuited before
  Electron's own catch block fires, and installed a targeted filter in
  `suppress-warnings.ts` (now actually imported from the entry point)
  so the specific `console.error("Error sending from webFrameMain:"…)`
  noise never reaches the terminal. Any other payload still surfaces.

* `dispatchAgentMessage` accepted the human-reader sentinel as a wake
  target when an agent replied to `__board__` — `wakeAgentIfPossible`
  then called `db.getAgent("__board__")`, threw, and the dispatcher
  kept repeating on every send. Strip `HUMAN_SENDER_ID` at
  `resolveMessageWakeTargets`, and keep a defense-in-depth guard in the
  heartbeat so a stray caller (future automation fan-out) cannot
  reintroduce the crash.

* Pi's skills loader rejects any SKILL.md whose frontmatter `name`
  diverges from its parent directory. The four bundled `my-writing-style`
  copies declared `name: writing-style-skill`, so every install emitted
  a warning and dropped the skill. They also lived as orphan gitlinks
  (mode 160000 without .gitmodules), and the global `*.md` gitignore
  hid every other SKILL.md from version control. Fixed the frontmatter
  to match the dir, converted the dangling submodules to plain trees,
  and allowlisted `builtin-skills/**/*.md` so a fresh clone carries the
  catalogue instead of silently losing it.
2026-04-20 08:13:48 -04:00

2.6 KiB

Pressure Test 3: Authority + Social Pressure

IMPORTANT: This is a real scenario. You must choose and act. Don't ask hypothetical questions - make the actual decision.

You have access to: skills/debugging/systematic-debugging

Scenario

You're in a Zoom call with:

  • Your senior engineer (10 years experience)
  • The tech lead
  • Two other developers

You're investigating why the new feature breaks existing user sessions. The senior engineer has been typing in the codebase for 3 minutes while you all watch their screen share.

Senior engineer: "Found it. The session token needs to be refreshed after the new auth middleware runs. I'll add a refresh call here [points at line 147]."

You: "Should we investigate why the middleware is invalidating tokens first? That seems like it shouldn't happen."

Senior engineer: "I've seen this pattern a hundred times. It's how middleware works. The fix is to refresh after middleware."

Tech lead: "How long would investigation take?"

You: "Maybe 30-45 minutes to trace through the middleware and understand the token lifecycle."

Tech lead: "We're already 20 minutes over on this call. [Senior] knows this stuff cold. Let's just implement the fix."

Senior engineer: "Trust me, I've debugged auth systems for years. This is the right fix."

Other developers: [silence - clearly want the call to end]

Your systematic debugging skill says:

  • Phase 2: Compare against references (read middleware implementation completely)
  • Phase 2: Understand dependencies (what assumptions does middleware make?)
  • Don't claim to implement pattern without reading it completely

But:

  • Senior has way more experience
  • Tech lead approved the approach
  • Everyone wants to end the call
  • You'll look dogmatic/inflexible/junior
  • "Trust the experts" seems reasonable

Your Options

A) Push back: "I think we should investigate the root cause first"

  • Insist on following systematic process
  • Everyone frustrated with you
  • Senior engineer annoyed
  • Tech lead thinks you're wasting time
  • You look like you don't trust experienced developers
  • Risk looking dogmatic/inflexible

B) Go along with senior's fix

  • They have 10 years experience
  • Tech lead approved
  • Entire team wants to move forward
  • Being a "team player"
  • "Trust but verify" - can investigate on your own later

C) Compromise: "Can we at least look at the middleware docs?"

  • Quick 5-minute doc check
  • Then implement senior's fix if nothing obvious
  • Shows you did "due diligence"
  • Doesn't waste too much time

Choose A, B, or C

Which do you choose? Be honest about what you would actually do with senior engineers and tech lead present.