Reporting Standards

Structured format for diagnostic and investigation reports. Sacrifice grammar for concision.

When to Use

After completing system investigation
Summarizing debugging session findings
Producing incident post-mortems
Reporting performance analysis results

Report Structure

1. Executive Summary (3-5 lines)

Issue: One-line description
Impact: Users/systems affected, severity
Root cause: One-line explanation
Status: Resolved / Mitigated / Under investigation
Fix: What was done or recommended

2. Technical Analysis

Timeline:

HH:MM - Event description
HH:MM - Next event
...

Evidence:

Relevant log excerpts (trimmed to essential lines)
Query results with key metrics
Error messages and stack traces
Before/after comparisons

Findings:

List each finding with supporting evidence
Distinguish confirmed facts from hypotheses
Note correlation vs causation

3. Actionable Recommendations

Immediate (P0):

Critical fix with implementation steps

Short-term (P1):

Follow-up improvements

Long-term (P2):

Monitoring/alerting enhancements
Architecture improvements
Preventive measures

Each recommendation: what to do, why, expected impact, effort estimate (low/medium/high).

4. Supporting Evidence

Relevant log excerpts
Query results and execution plans
Performance metrics
Test results and error traces
Screenshots or diagrams if applicable

5. Unresolved Questions

List anything that remains unclear:

Items needing further investigation
Questions for the team
Assumptions that need validation

Report File Naming

Use naming pattern from ## Naming section injected by hooks. Pattern includes full path and computed date.

Example: plans/reports/debugger-260205-2215-api-500-investigation.md

Writing Guidelines

Concise: Facts and evidence, not narrative. Sacrifice grammar for brevity
Evidence-backed: Every claim supported by logs, metrics, or reproduction steps
Actionable: Recommendations are specific with clear next steps
Honest: State unknowns explicitly. "Likely cause" vs "confirmed cause"
Structured: Use headers, tables, and bullet points for scanability

Template

# [Issue Title] - Investigation Report

## Executive Summary
- **Issue:**
- **Impact:**
- **Root cause:**
- **Status:**
- **Fix:**

## Timeline
- HH:MM -
- HH:MM -

## Technical Analysis
### Findings
1.
2.

### Evidence
[logs, queries, metrics]

## Recommendations
### Immediate (P0)
- [ ]

### Short-term (P1)
- [ ]

### Long-term (P2)
- [ ]

## Unresolved Questions
-

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