1 min lesson
The job: you can isolate whether index, rule or MCP state is failing
Say what this means in practice: "You can isolate whether index, rule or MCP state is failing."
Step 1 of 3
The job: you can isolate whether index, rule or MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition. state is failing. Start with this check: Index, rules and MCP status are captured separately. Keep it small enough to check the result yourself instead of taking the summary on trust.
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Full explanation
Reliability triage
Context source failures — isolate one broken source end to end
Reliability triage
SayThe agent has the right goal, answering a question about the payments service, but its answer is stale and it says it can't read the current file. The goal is right, so a context source is failing. I capture index, rules and MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition. state separately before I retry, so I know which one.
DoOpen Indexing settings. The index reports current, but the payments folder sits under the ignored paths, so that file was never indexed.
SeeIndex status is captured on its own: a real suspect, an ignored path the reindex kept skipping.
DoInspect the rules that apply to this file and workflow. One broad rule is in scope, but nothing here blocks reading the file.
SeeRules are ruled out. Re-indexing louder would have missed that they were never the cause.
DoList the MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition. servers and tools from mcp.json, then read the MCP logs. Auth is valid and every tool is reachable.
SeeMCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition. state is captured separately and clean, so this is not a tool or auth failure dressed up as a model failure.
DoRetry with the smallest context source that should work: remove the payments folder from the ignored paths, let indexing finish, then re-ask with just that one file attached.
SeeThe answer corrects. The failing source was the index, one ignored path, isolated from rules and MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition., and never the model.
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Optional practice
You can isolate whether index, rule or MCP state is failing
QYou've applied it. What actually proves the work is done, not just a plausible answer?