Claude Skills Guide

Claude Code Bug Reporting Best Practices

When you encounter a bug in your Claude Code setup, a well-crafted bug report accelerates resolution significantly. Whether you’re working with skills like tdd for test-driven development workflows, supermemory for knowledge management, or frontend-design for UI generation, the bug reporting process remains consistent. This guide covers practical patterns for documenting issues that maintainers can actually use.

Why Bug Reports Matter in Claude Code

Claude Code extends the model’s capabilities through skills—modular prompt packages that add domain-specific functionality. When a skill fails to produce expected output, crashes, or behaves unexpectedly, your bug report becomes the primary diagnostic tool. Unlike traditional software where you might include stack traces, Claude Code bugs often manifest as:

The difference between a bug fixed in 24 hours versus one that lingers for months often comes down to how well the report communicates the problem.

Essential Components of a Bug Report

Every effective bug report contains five core elements. Missing any of these dramatically reduces the chances of rapid resolution.

1. Environment Context

Start with your setup details. Include your Claude Code version, operating system, and relevant configuration. For Claude Code specifically, document which skills are loaded and their versions if applicable.

## Environment
- Claude Code version: 1.0.23
- OS: macOS 14.2
- Skills loaded: tdd, supermemory, pdf
- Node version: 20.11.0

2. Reproducible Steps

This is the most critical section. Write clear, numbered steps that anyone can follow to trigger the bug. Avoid vague descriptions like “it fails when using the skill.” Instead, be specific:

## Steps to Reproduce
1. Load the `tdd` skill
2. Create a new test file at /tmp/test-sample.js
3. Run: "Write tests for a function that validates email addresses"
4. Observe: The skill generates no output and hangs indefinitely

If your bug involves the pdf skill generating malformed documents, document exactly what input you provided and what you expected versus what occurred.

3. Expected vs Actual Behavior

Clearly separate what should have happened from what actually happened. This gap is where the bug lives.

## Expected Behavior
Claude should output a complete Jest test suite with at least 5 test cases.

## Actual Behavior
The response is empty. No error message appears. The conversation hangs for 30+ seconds before timing out.

4. Supporting Evidence

Include logs, screenshots, or command outputs that illuminate the issue. For Claude Code, relevant logs might come from:

# Enable verbose logging
claude --verbose run "your prompt here"

If you’re debugging skill interactions with frontend-design, capture the exact prompt that triggered unexpected behavior. When the supermemory skill fails to retrieve context, show what query you used and what returned instead.

5. Minimal Reproduction

Create the smallest possible demonstration of the bug. Remove unnecessary complexity. If you can reproduce the issue with a single skill and one prompt, that’s far more useful than a complex multi-step workflow.

Code Snippets That Help Maintainers

When reporting bugs involving skill behavior, include actual prompts and outputs. Use code blocks for readability:

Buggy prompt:

Using the tdd skill, write tests for this function:
function add(a, b) { return a + b; }

Unexpected output:

(no output returned)

Expected output:

describe('add', () => {
  it('should add two numbers', () => {
    expect(add(1, 2)).toBe(3);
  });
  // ... more tests
});

This specificity allows maintainers to run identical commands and observe the failure directly.

Categorizing Common Claude Code Bug Types

Understanding the bug category helps maintainers route your report effectively.

Tool Execution Failures

When a skill attempts to use a tool (read_file, bash, write_file) and it fails, document the exact tool call and error message. Skills like pdf rely heavily on tool execution for document generation.

Prompt Interpretation Issues

Sometimes Claude misinterprets skill instructions. Document the exact prompt you used and how the interpretation diverged from your intent.

Skill Loading Errors

If a skill fails to load on initialization, capture the complete error output. This often indicates front matter issues or missing dependencies.

Context Management Problems

With skills that manage long conversations like supermemory, document where context appears to be lost or corrupted.

Structuring Your Report for Maximum Impact

Use a consistent template for all bug reports:

# [Brief Title]

## Summary
One or two sentences describing the issue.

## Environment
- Claude Code version:
- OS:
- Relevant skills:

## Steps to Reproduce
1.
2.
3.

## Expected Behavior
What should happen.

## Actual Behavior
What actually happens.

## Supporting Materials
Logs, screenshots, or reproduction code.

## Suggested Fix (Optional)
If you have a hypothesis about the cause.

This structure mirrors what open-source maintainers expect and enables quick triage.

What to Avoid

Resist the temptation to report bugs that stem from your own configuration errors. Before submitting, verify the issue persists after:

Also avoid reporting feature requests as bugs. If Claude doesn’t have a capability you want, that’s a feature request, not a bug.

Leveraging Skills for Better Bug Reports

Several Claude skills can improve your bug reporting workflow:

Final Checklist Before Submission

Quality bug reports respect maintainer time. By following these practices, you contribute to a healthier Claude Code ecosystem where issues get resolved faster and skills improve more rapidly.

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