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nw-root-why

Testing & Quality
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Root cause analysis and debugging

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How to use this skill

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/nWave-ai/nWave/blob/HEAD/nWave/skills/nw-root-why/SKILL.md

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NW-ROOT-WHY: Toyota 5 Whys Root Cause Analysis

Wave: CROSS_WAVE Agent: Rex (nw-troubleshooter)

Overview

Systematic root cause analysis using Toyota's 5 Whys with multi-causal investigation and evidence-based validation. Investigates multiple cause branches at each level|validates solutions against all identified root causes.

Agent Invocation

@nw-troubleshooter

Execute *investigate-root-cause for {problem-statement}.

Configuration:

  • investigation_depth: 5
  • multi_causal: true
  • evidence_required: true

Usage: DELIVER Wave Retrospective (Phase 3.5)

When invoked as part of /nw-deliver Phase 3.5, execute in order:

  1. Gather Inputs — Read the evolution document, mutation results, git log, roadmap.json, and execution-log.json. Gate: all available inputs loaded.
  2. Analyze What Worked Well — Identify practices that succeeded and document why — preserve these. Gate: at least one practice documented with rationale.
  3. Analyze What Improved — Identify what worked better than before and why — record as reinforcements. Gate: delta from prior execution captured.
  4. Analyze What Worked Badly — Apply 5 Whys root cause analysis to failures; produce actionable fix per root cause. Gate: each failure has a root cause and fix.
  5. Analyze What Regressed — Apply 5 Whys to anything worse than before; produce prevention action. Gate: each regression has a root cause and prevention action.
  6. Tag Meta-Improvements — Mark any items requiring nWave framework changes as meta-improvements. Gate: all framework-level issues flagged.
  7. Append Retrospective — Write retrospective section to evolution document. If clean execution (no skips, no failures, no tooling issues), generate brief summary only. Gate: evolution document updated.

Success Criteria

  • All 5 WHY levels investigated with evidence
  • Multi-causal branches explored at each level
  • Root causes identified and validated
  • Solutions address all identified root causes
  • Backward chain validation performed

Next Wave

Handoff To: {invoking-agent-returns-to-workflow} Deliverables: Root cause analysis report with solutions

Examples

Example 1: Investigate test flakiness

/nw-root-why "Integration tests fail intermittently on CI but pass locally"

Rex investigates 5 WHY levels with multi-causal branches, discovers race condition in database cleanup, proposes transaction-isolated test fixtures.

Expected Outputs

docs/analysis/root-cause-analysis-{problem}.md