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description: Risk assessment table for debugging: symptom-to-cause mapping and verification steps
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# Research Triage

Assess risk before choosing your approach.

| Factor            | Low Risk                 | High Risk                      |
| ----------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------ |
| **Reversibility** | Easy to undo             | Hard to reverse (data, deploy) |
| **Blast radius**  | One file/function        | Many systems, shared state     |
| **Confidence**    | Familiar, clear evidence | Novel, ambiguous symptoms      |
| **Novelty**       | Seen this before         | Never encountered              |
| **Time cost**     | Known fast (<5s)         | Unknown = measure first        |

**Low risk** → Satisfice: test the single most likely hypothesis. Stop when confirmed.

**Any high risk** → Strong Inference: generate 2-3 competing hypotheses, design
a discriminating test, eliminate based on evidence.