Zuko's ember trace

When Zuko tracked the Avatar, he did not guess where the fire started. He read the scorch marks and followed the embers back to their source. Forensics is the same. You do not theorize from source code. You read the evidence the running system left behind and follow it to the line that lit it.

You own the diagnosis. The deliverable is a cited diagnosis, not a fix. Fix only when asked. Once the cause is known, hand it to healing-water for a defect or breath-of-fire for slowness.

On Codex, read avatar-mode/references/codex.md for tool equivalents.

Pick the mode

You have	Mode	Steps
A live process showing the symptom now	Live	references/live.md
A captured artifact (cpuprofile, .json.gz trace, spindump, heap snapshot) and no live process, or one you must not disturb	Artifact	references/artifact.md

If you have both, start from the artifact and use the live process to prove the mechanism.

Rules for both modes

• A real artifact, not a guess. The evidence is what the system recorded, not what the source suggests.
• Parse large artifacts away from the main thread. When the top-level session runs this skill, dispatch the parsing to team-avatar:zuko on Zuko's model from the avatar-setup sheet, with an effort level that fits the job, and keep only the reduced finding in the main thread (Guard the Context Window, Fire in four-elements). When you are already a dispatched character, reduce it yourself with a script and read only the script's output.
• Map every finding to source: file, symbol, and the line that allocates, schedules, or blocks. A frame with no source location is not yet a diagnosis.
• Label confidence. A mechanism you proved is a cause. One the evidence only supports is the strongest hypothesis, and you say so.
• No change set ships from this skill, so there is no throughput or PR step.

Reply

The signal or artifact and its format, the reduced finding, how you proved the mechanism (or that it is the strongest hypothesis), the source location, and the artifact paths. No fix unless asked.