Troubleshooting Guide

Systematically diagnose SpawnForge failures. Default to auto which runs through all areas.

Triage Order

Always investigate in this order — later steps often depend on earlier ones being healthy.

1. WASM Build Failures

# Check if engine-pkg directories exist and are recent
ls -la web/public/engine-pkg-*/forge_engine_bg.wasm 2>/dev/null
# Check wasm-bindgen version match (must be 0.2.127)
grep 'wasm-bindgen' engine/Cargo.lock | head -5
# Try a build and capture errors
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build_wasm.ps1 2>&1 | tail -50

Common causes:

• wasm-bindgen version mismatch (pinned to 0.2.127 — check Cargo.lock vs installed CLI)
• Missing wasm32-unknown-unknown target: rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
• Bevy feature errors: ensure tonemapping_luts is enabled (without it, materials render pink)
• csgrs build: needs Windows SDK LIB paths for doc-image-embed proc-macro on native. build_wasm.ps1 handles this
• wasm-opt not found: install via cargo install wasm-opt or npm i -g wasm-opt

2. CI Pipeline Failures

# Recent workflow runs
gh run list --limit 5
# Failed run details
gh run view <ID> --log-failed
# Check if gate job is stuck (path-filter + required-checks issue)
gh pr checks <PR_NUMBER>

Common causes:

• Gate job shows "Expected" forever: path filters skip jobs, but required checks need them to run. Fix: add gate job that always runs
• Coverage hangs: vitest + jsdom open handles (vitest#3077). Use --pool=threads --coverage with timeout wrapper
• Artifact version mismatches: upload-artifact v4 vs download-artifact v4 (must match)
• npm ci lock mismatch: delete node_modules, re-run npm ci

3. Dev Server Issues

# Check if Portless is running
curl -s http://spawnforge.localhost:1355 > /dev/null 2>&1 && echo "Portless OK" || echo "Portless not running"
# Fallback without Portless
cd web && PORTLESS=0 npm run dev
# Check for port conflicts
lsof -i :3000 -i :1355 2>/dev/null

Common causes:

• Portless not installed/running: fall back to localhost:3000
• Clerk keys missing: use /dev route to bypass auth
• WASM not built: engine-pkg directories missing or stale
• Turbopack issues: dev uses --webpack flag for compatibility

4. Production / Vercel Issues

# Recent deployments
vercel ls --limit 5
# Runtime logs
vercel logs <deployment-url> --since 1h
# Environment variables
vercel env ls

Common causes:

• Missing env vars: run vercel env ls and compare with .env.example
• Build failures: check Vercel build logs, often CSP or Clerk key format issues
• Stale WASM: content hash mismatch between deploy and CDN (engine.spawnforge.ai)

5. E2E Test Failures

# Run single test with debug
cd web && npx playwright test <test-name> --debug
# Check test report
cd web && npx playwright show-report
# Common: hydration dialog selector changed
grep -r "dialog\|getByRole" web/e2e/tests/ | head -10

Common causes:

• Hydration dialogs: Clerk/Next.js hydration creates dialogs that intercept clicks. Use page.getByRole('dialog') checks
• Stale WASM: E2E tests need a fresh WASM build
• Cold start: first test after build is slow, increase timeout
• Missing test tags: @smoke, @critical tags for CI filtering

6. Engine Panics (Rust/WASM)

# Check browser console for panic messages
# Common: B0001 (query conflicts) or B0002 (resource conflicts)
grep -r "B0001\|B0002\|ParamSet" engine/src/ | head -10
# Check for system parameter conflicts
grep -rn "Res<.*>\|ResMut<.*>" engine/src/bridge/ | grep -v "^Binary"

Common causes:

• B0001: Two queries with overlapping &T / &mut T. Fix: use ParamSet
• B0002: Both Res<T> and ResMut<T> for same resource. Fix: use only ResMut<T>
• System param limit (16): merge related queries
• Missing feature gate: #[cfg(feature = "webgpu")] for Hanabi systems

7. External Service Health

# Sentry
curl -s https://sentry.io/api/0/ -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN" | head -1

# Neon DB
cd web && npx drizzle-kit studio 2>&1 | head -5

# Stripe webhooks
stripe events list --limit 3 2>/dev/null || echo "Stripe CLI not configured"

# Check health endpoint
curl -s http://spawnforge.localhost:1355/api/health 2>/dev/null | python3 -m json.tool 2>/dev/null || echo "Health endpoint unreachable"

Service reference:

Service	Dashboard	Key env var
Sentry	tristan-nolan / spawnforge-ai	SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN
Neon	Vercel Marketplace	DATABASE_URL
Upstash	Vercel Marketplace	UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL
Clerk	clerk.com	CLERK_SECRET_KEY
Stripe	dashboard.stripe.com	STRIPE_SECRET_KEY
PostHog	posthog.com	NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY
R2 CDN	engine.spawnforge.ai	CLOUDFLARE_R2_*

Auto Mode

When $ARGUMENTS is empty or auto, run through all areas in order, stopping at the first failure found. Report findings with specific file paths and line numbers.

Scripts

• bash "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/triage.sh" — Structured diagnostic report: git status, branch, recent commits, Node version, port availability, WASM binaries, and CI status
• bash "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/check-dev-server.sh" — Verify dev server status, check .env.local for required vars, WASM binaries, and common issues (port conflicts, Node version)

References

• See failure-patterns.md — 10 common failure patterns with root causes, diagnostic commands, and confirmed fixes (Node segfaults, Clerk auth crash, neon-http transaction crash, missing WASM, panelRegistry nesting bug, rate limiter missing await, and more)