1 min lesson
Asking the right questions first
Walk through each part of "Asking the right questions first", then explain what each one does.
Step 1 of 3
The fastest debuggers ask four sharp questions before they open a single log. The right facts can shrink "it's broken" down to a single suspect line.
On a real ticket you can't see the user's machine. In the interview you often get a terse prompt and an interviewer playing the user. Both reward the same instinct: pull the environment and the scope out first, because they cut the most branches.
Learn more
Full explanation
Establish scope and timing
Establish scope and timingone user or a fleet
- One user or many? A single user points at local config; a whole org points at policy, network or a server-side change.
- When did it start? A timestamp lets you correlate against a Cursor release, a model change or an internal incident.
- What changed right before? An update, a new extension, a fresh repo, a new VPN - recent changes are the prime suspects.