Diagnose an integration-test failure
SkillDev toolsDiagnose a failing TMDb integration-test run — summarise the failure, rank the likely cause, and suggest a concrete fix
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What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by adamayoung/tmdb in .claude/skills/diagnose-integration-failure/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
The TMDb integration tests hit the live TMDb API. The suite runs on three
triggers — pull_request / push (where it gates the change) and
schedule (the weekly live-API canary). Which run failed flips the most
likely cause, so determine the trigger first (step 0):
- PR / push-triggered → this run is the gate for a code change, so a
regression in the diff is a real candidate — weigh it alongside backend/data
drift. This is the common case when invoked from
/watch-pror/fix-pr-checks. - Scheduled → no code changed, so a regression is unlikely; the cause is almost certainly a backend change, drifted test data, or a transient error.
Wrong suite? If a CI check failed instead (lint, markdown, build, or unit tests from
ci.yml), use/diagnose-ci-failure. That one leads with the opposite assumption: a CI failure is almost always caused by the change under review.
Agent Behaviour Contract
Do these by default, without being reminded.
- Observe before you theorise. The log tells you what broke; only a live
call tells you what the API returns today. So a cause that claims the API
changed shape, or that a test's baseline drifted, must be backed by a live
observation —
mcp__tmdb__*(CLAUDE.md's standing instruction). - Every such cause carries an
observed:line naming the tool called and the shape that came back. A cause with noobserved:line is not reportable as ranked — demote it and mark itunverified. This is what makes the rule checkable by the consumer instead of trusting the diagnostician. - Only causes 1 and 2 can be observed. A transient/rate-limit (cause 3) and
an in-diff regression (cause 0) cannot be confirmed by a live call — the
endpoint being healthy now says nothing about either. Do not manufacture an
observed:line for them; the requirement does not apply. - Never publish a secret. An
observed:line records the tool and the shape, never a URL, command, or header carryingTMDB_API_KEY. TMDb takesapi_keyas a query item, so a pastedcurlleaks it — and this analysis is published verbatim into an issue on a public repo. Saymcp__tmdb__movie_details(550) → runtime: Int, present, not the command. - Headless runs cannot probe. The scheduled
integration-failure.ymljob mounts no MCP. There, writeobserved: unavailable (headless)and mark the causeunverified— do not fall back tocurl, which would put the key in the text (rule 4). Attended runs have the MCP; use it.
Produce a concise markdown analysis with exactly these three sections:
Summary: one or two sentences on what failed — name the failing suite/test where visible.
Likely cause: the most probable root cause, ranked most-likely first —
ranked by the trigger (step 0). Each cause 1 or 2 carries its observed:
line, or is marked unverified:
- If PR / push-triggered, add as a top candidate:
0. A regression in the changed code — read the diff (
git diff main...HEAD). A new/renamed request path or query item, a changed model/CodingKeys, or a decoder tweak can break a live call. This run is the gate, so the diff is a prime suspect — but still weigh causes 1–3 below, since the live API can drift independently of your change. - If scheduled, do NOT lead with "a code bug" (nothing changed); go straight to 1–3.
- A TMDb backend change — a response field was added, removed, renamed, or
became nullable, breaking a model's
Decodable. Call the endpoint viamcp__tmdb__*and record what came back (observed:); confirm against the OpenAPI spec (see step 3) for the documented shape. - Stale assumed data in an integration test — the test asserts a specific
live value (a title, count, id, date, or ordering) that the API now returns
differently. The code is fine; the test's baseline has drifted. Fetch the
value the test asserts and record it (
observed:) — drift is only a fact once you have seen today's value. - A transient API error, rate limiting (HTTP 429), or a timeout — the
Integration Test job has a 30-minute
timeout-minutes, and a cancelled (timed-out) run still surfaces as a workflowfailure. A truncated log with no assertion failure, or a run that ran the full 30 minutes, points here.
Cite the specific HTTP status codes, error messages, or failing assertions from the log that point to your conclusion.
Suggested fix: the concrete next step — which Swift model or JSON fixture to update for an API change, which integration-test assertion to relax or refresh for drifted data, or (only for case 3) re-run the job / wait out rate limiting / investigate the slow run if it timed out.
Keep it under ~150 words.
Steps
-
Determine the trigger (it sets the cause ranking above). If the caller told you (e.g.
/watch-pr//fix-pr-checksdiagnose a PR run), use that. Otherwise read it from the run withmcp__github__actions_getmethodget_workflow_run(owner/repo from theoriginremote,resource_id: <id>) →eventispull_request,push, orschedule(headless / no MCP:gh run view <id> --json event,displayTitle). If you can't tell, assume PR/push when a local diff vsmainexists, else scheduled. -
Locate the failure log, in this order — use the first that exists:
- A path the caller handed you (e.g.
failure-log.txtin the working directory, used by the CI alert workflow). .build/last-integration-test.log— written by the/integration-testskill. If you (or the user) haven't run the tests yet locally, run/integration-testfirst, then read this log.- Otherwise, find the failing run with the GitHub MCP (owner/repo from
origin):mcp__github__actions_listmethodlist_workflow_runs(resource_id: integration.yml,workflow_runs_filter: { status: completed }, then filter toconclusion == "failure"), and read its log withmcp__github__get_job_logs(run_id: <id>,failed_only: true,return_content: true). Headless / no MCP:gh run list --workflow Integration --status failure --limit 1thengh run view <id> --log-failed.
- A path the caller handed you (e.g.
-
Read the failing portion — focus on the assertion failures and error messages, which surface near the end. Read the specific test, model, and fixture files the log points to so your suggested fix names real symbols.
-
Check the OpenAPI spec when the failure looks like a decode/shape error. The live spec is the source of truth for the current response shape, but it is ~3 MB of minified JSON on a single line — NEVER
grep,cat, orReadit whole; that dumps the entire file into context. Extract only the one endpoint you need withjq(requiresjq, which is present in CI and installable via Homebrew locally; ifjqis unavailable, skip this step and say so):- Use
tmdb-openapi.jsonin the working directory if present; otherwise fetch it (best-effort):curl -fsSL --max-time 30 https://developer.themoviedb.org/openapi/tmdb-api.json -o tmdb-openapi.json - The spec is OpenAPI 3.1 with response schemas inlined per endpoint
(there is no reusable
components.schemas). Find the endpoint, then pull just its 200-response schema:- List endpoints (cheap, ~5 KB):
jq -r '.paths | keys[]' tmdb-openapi.json - Pull one schema (~5 KB):
jq '.paths."/3/movie/{movie_id}".get.responses."200".content."application/json".schema' tmdb-openapi.json(swap in the path + HTTP method for the failing request) - Even cheaper, just the field names:
… .schema.properties | keys[]
- List endpoints (cheap, ~5 KB):
- Compare the live schema against the failing model/fixture to confirm whether a field changed, became nullable, or was removed — then point at the specific Swift model or JSON fixture that needs updating.
- If the spec can't be fetched or
jqis unavailable, say so and proceed without it.
- Use
-
Output the analysis. If the caller asked you to write it to a file (e.g.
claude-analysis.md), write the three-section markdown there and nothing else. Otherwise present it directly in your reply.
Signals
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- Last commit
- Aug 2026
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diagnose-integration-failure- Source
- github.com/adamayoung/tmdb