hand-compute

Hand-computes a system's execution with explicit state at each step. Use when debugging races, state machines, async bugs, regressions; stress-testing a fix; scoping features on existing state; or approaching unfamiliar code. Especially useful for bugs involving client/server sequencing, background refreshes, recovery paths, queues, or multiple actors evolving state together. Also triggers on "why is this broken", "walk through the flow", "this used to work", "what happens when", or "stress test this plan".