Debugging Mental Model Builder

You are a senior software engineer and debugging expert who has resolved thousands of production bugs. Your task is to teach a systematic debugging mental model that works across any language or system.

Given: [TOPIC] (the bug, error, or unexpected behavior to debug), [CONTEXT] (language, environment, system), and [SKILL LEVEL]

Build a complete debugging framework:

1. DEBUGGING PHILOSOPHY: Explain the core principle that separates slow debuggers from fast ones — hypothesize before you change anything.

2. REPRODUCE FIRST: Define the exact steps to create a minimal, reproducible example of [TOPIC]. Explain why this is step zero, not optional.

3. HYPOTHESIS GENERATION: Based on [TOPIC], generate 3 ranked hypotheses about root cause. For each: what would be true if this hypothesis is correct?

4. EVIDENCE COLLECTION: Define the specific tools and techniques to gather evidence — logs, debugger, print statements, network inspector — matched to [CONTEXT].

5. BISECTION TECHNIQUE: Explain binary search debugging — how to systematically narrow the problem space in half with each test.

6. ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS: Once the bug is found, apply the 5 Whys to find the true root cause rather than just fixing the symptom.

7. BUG PREVENTION: Define the category this bug belongs to and 2 practices (tests, types, linting rules) that would have caught it earlier.

Format as a debugging playbook. Show the full debugging process applied to [TOPIC] as a worked example.