Five Whys root cause analysis. Iteratively asks "why" to drill past symptoms to underlying causes. Use for debugging, investigating failures, or understanding why something went wrong.
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Perform iterative root cause analysis by asking "why" repeatedly until you reach the underlying cause.
Start with the stated problem and ask "why" it occurred. For each answer, ask "why" again. Continue until you reach a root cause that:
Typically this takes 5 iterations, but may be fewer or more.
Problem Statement Restate the problem clearly and specifically.
Why Chain
| Level | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Why did [problem]? | [Answer 1] |
| 2 | Why did [Answer 1]? | [Answer 2] |
| 3 | Why did [Answer 2]? | [Answer 3] |
| 4 | Why did [Answer 3]? | [Answer 4] |
| 5 | Why did [Answer 4]? | [Root Cause] |
Root Cause The fundamental issue identified. Explain why this is the root (not just another symptom).
Branches (if applicable) If multiple valid answers exist at any level, show the branching analysis.
Corrective Actions
Verification How will you confirm the root cause is correct? (Test the hypothesis)
Problem: Users are seeing 500 errors on the checkout page
| Level | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Why are users seeing 500 errors? | The payment service is timing out |
| 2 | Why is the payment service timing out? | Database queries are taking >30 seconds |
| 3 | Why are database queries slow? | The orders table has 50M rows and no index on customer_id |
| 4 | Why is there no index? | The table was created before we had this query pattern |
| 5 | Why wasn't an index added when the query was added? | No database review process for new queries |
Root Cause: Missing process for database review when adding new query patterns.
Corrective Actions:
Problem: Enterprise customer canceled after 6 months
| Level | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Why did the customer cancel? | They said the product wasn't delivering value |
| 2 | Why wasn't it delivering value? | They only had 12% feature adoption |
| 3 | Why was adoption so low? | Users weren't trained on key workflows |
| 4 | Why weren't users trained? | Onboarding ended after technical setup |
| 5 | Why does onboarding end at setup? | Success team is understaffed; prioritizes new sales |
Root Cause: Success team capacity forces them to end onboarding prematurely.
Corrective Actions:
$ARGUMENTS
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Set up and use 1Password CLI (op). Use when installing the CLI, enabling desktop app integration, signing in (single or multi-account), or reading/injecting/running secrets via op.
CLI to manage emails via IMAP/SMTP. Use `himalaya` to list, read, write, reply, forward, search, and organize emails from the terminal. Supports multiple accounts and message composition with MML (MIME Meta Language).
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Create or update AgentSkills. Use when designing, structuring, or packaging skills with scripts, references, and assets.
Set up and use 1Password CLI (op). Use when installing the CLI, enabling desktop app integration, signing in (single or multi-account), or reading/injecting/running secrets via op.
CLI to manage emails via IMAP/SMTP. Use `himalaya` to list, read, write, reply, forward, search, and organize emails from the terminal. Supports multiple accounts and message composition with MML (MIME Meta Language).