Agent skill · software engineering · sickn33
debugging-code
Interactively debug source code — set breakpoints, step through execution line by line, inspect live variable state, evaluate expressions against the running program, and navigate the call stack to trace root causes.
Why this skill is useful
Adds specific commands and workflows for using the DAP protocol to debug various programming languages interactively, which the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires dap installed locally. About 7k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 44,571 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Interactive Debugger When to Use Use this skill when you need interactively debug source code — set breakpoints, step through execution line by line, inspect live variable state, evaluate expressions against the running program, and navigate the call stack to trace root causes. Use when a program crashes, raises unexpected exceptions, produces... Use when a program crashes, produces wrong output, or you need to understand exactly how execution reached a particular state — and running it again with more print statements won't give you the answer fast enough. You can pause a running program at any point, read live variable values and the call stack at that exact moment, step forward line by line or jump to the next breakpoint, and evaluate arbitrary expressions against the live process — all without restarting. Setup This skill uses dap, a CLI tool that background daemon to interact with the debugger via the DAP Protocol, maintain the debugger state, so you can simply interact with it with multiple calls. If dap isn't installed (check: command -v dap), install it NOW. Ask/notify the user before proceeding to install it. From Homebrew (macOS) Installer script: Install from sources: This tool is open-sourced and available on GitHub, maintained and follows best practices. Supports natively Python, Go, Node.js/TypeScript, Rust, C/C++, and any other language that supports DAP. If a debugger backend is missing or fails to start, see references/installing-debuggers.md For all commands and flags: dap --help or dap <cmd> --help. Starting a Session dap debug <file> launches the program under the debugger. Backend is auto-detected from the file extension. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills sickn33/debugging-code--cb2013