Lobster Debugging is a skill that enforces a four-phase debugging protocol on an AI agent, replacing ad-hoc guess-and-check repairs with a systematic, forensic approach to software defects.
Phase 1 (Investigation) directs the agent to perform a binary search of the codebase and add diagnostic instrumentation before any fix is attempted. Phase 2 (Synchronization) targets flaky timing problems by replacing arbitrary sleep timers with event-based waiting conditions. Phase 3 (Defense-in-Depth) moves beyond the single defect to introduce guards that prevent entire classes of similar vulnerabilities. Phase 4 (Verification) requires the agent to prove the fix handles edge cases and passes regression tests before the work is considered complete.
The skill enforces what its documentation calls the ‘Iron Law’: no code change is permitted until a root cause has been proven. This prevents common anti-patterns such as symptom-only patches and magic timeout values that leave technical debt behind.
This is a skill (not an MCP server), so it has no callable tools of its own; it operates as a behavioral framework that shapes how an AI agent reasons through a debugging task. It is most useful when an agent is being applied to complex, recurring, or timing-sensitive bugs where shallow fixes have already failed.