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Bugfixes

What is a bugfix in RaiSE?

A bugfix is a structured pipeline designed around one insight: a fix that starts from the wrong root cause wastes the entire effort. Unlike features (which can be built incrementally), bugs fail catastrophically when the analysis is wrong. The pipeline puts gates at the critical decision points — so you catch mistakes before investing in the wrong fix.

Why a pipeline?

Most bug fixes fail like this:

  1. Developer sees a symptom
  2. Assumes a cause
  3. Writes a fix for the assumed cause
  4. Fix doesn't work (wrong cause) — repeat from step 2
  5. Eventually finds the real cause, but now there's leftover code from failed attempts

RaiSE's bugfix pipeline inverts this: prove the cause before writing the fix. You spend more time analyzing and less time rewriting.

The pipeline

The bugfix pipeline has 10 phases, organized around 5 gates:

Phase What happens Gate question
Scope Reproduce the bug, define expected vs actual behavior Is this the right problem?
Analyze Find root cause, plan the fix strategy Is this the right cause?
Architecture review Check if the planned change is proportionate Is the fix proportionate?
Fix Write failing test (RED), fix it (GREEN), refactor Does the fix work?
Quality review Check for regressions, semantic risks Is the fix complete?
Close Merge, transition Jira, cleanup Done

Each gate pauses for your review. You decide when to proceed — the pipeline never auto-advances past a decision point.

How to start

In your AI assistant (Claude Code), ask Rai:

Start the bugfix pipeline for RAISE-1234

Rai calls the MCP pipeline engine, detects which phase to start from (or resumes from where you left off), and guides you through each phase.

Key principles

  • Reproduce first — a bug you can't reproduce is a bug you can't verify as fixed
  • Failing test first — the test proves the bug exists AND proves the fix works (TDD)
  • Proportional effort — small bugs get lighter ceremony. The pipeline adapts to the size of the fix
  • Root cause over symptoms — fixing the symptom leaves the real bug alive for next time

What's next