---
title: "Your First Investigation"
sidebarTitle: "First Investigation"
description: "Walk through a complete deep investigation from start to finish."
---

## Scenario

A pod in your production cluster is stuck in `CrashLoopBackOff` after a deployment. Let's use Siclaw to diagnose it.

## Start Siclaw

```bash
siclaw
```

If you want Siclaw to inspect a Kubernetes cluster, import a kubeconfig first with `/setup`.

## Describe the Problem

```
? What would you like to investigate?
> Pod payment-service is CrashLoopBackOff in namespace prod after deploying v2.3
```

<Tip>
Be specific. Include the pod name, namespace, and what changed (e.g., "after deploying v2.3"). More context = better hypotheses.
</Tip>

## Phase 1: Context Gathering

Siclaw automatically runs diagnostic commands to understand the situation:

```
── Phase 1: Context Gathering ─────────────────────────────
  kubectl get pods -n prod | grep payment-service
  kubectl describe pod payment-service-xxx -n prod
  kubectl logs payment-service-xxx -n prod --previous
  kubectl get events -n prod --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'
```

All commands are **read-only** — nothing is modified.

## Phase 2: Hypothesis Generation

Based on the evidence, Siclaw generates ranked hypotheses:

```
── Phase 2: Hypothesis Generation ──────────────────────────
  H1  OOMKilled — memory limit too low for v2.3      confidence: 78%
  H2  Config mount failure — missing configmap key    confidence: 45%
  H3  Liveness probe mismatch — endpoint changed      confidence: 32%
```

<Note>
If Investigation Memory has data, Siclaw will also check past incidents for similar patterns and adjust hypothesis confidence accordingly.
</Note>

## Phase 3: Parallel Validation

Up to 3 sub-agents independently validate each hypothesis:

```
── Phase 3: Parallel Validation (3 sub-agents) ─────────────
  Agent-1 validating H1 · Agent-2 validating H2 · Agent-3 validating H3
```

Each sub-agent runs targeted commands to confirm or refute its hypothesis. They don't share information — this prevents confirmation bias.

## Phase 4: Conclusion

Siclaw synthesizes all evidence into a structured report:

```
── Phase 4: Conclusion ──────────────────────────────────────
  Root Cause: OOMKilled — memory limit 256Mi insufficient for v2.3
  Confidence: 92% · Evidence: 4 signals · Duration: 47s

  Causal chain:
    1. v2.3 deployment added new caching layer
    2. Memory usage increased from ~180Mi to ~310Mi
    3. Pod exceeded 256Mi memory limit
    4. Kernel OOMKilled the process → container restart → CrashLoopBackOff

  Recommended next steps:
    - Increase the deployment memory limit to 512Mi
    - Add memory requests to match expected usage
```

The full trace is saved to `.siclaw/traces/deep-search-{timestamp}.md` (relative to where Siclaw was launched).

## Deep Investigation Mode

For complex issues, you can explicitly trigger a deep investigation:

```
> /dp "Intermittent 5xx errors on the API gateway, happening every 30 minutes"
```

This activates the structured 4-phase workflow (triage → hypotheses → parallel validation → conclusion) for thorough investigation.

## More Examples

Here are other common scenarios Siclaw handles well:

### OOMKilled Pods

```
> Pods in namespace ml-training keep getting OOMKilled, happening more since yesterday
```

Siclaw will check memory limits vs actual usage, recent deployment changes, and correlate with node memory pressure.

### Node NotReady

```
> Node worker-07 went NotReady 20 minutes ago, pods are being evicted
```

Siclaw will inspect node conditions, kubelet logs, kernel messages (dmesg), and network connectivity to the API server.

### Intermittent Network Issues

```
> /dp "Service mesh intermittent 503 errors between order-service and inventory-service"
```

Using `/dp` triggers the full structured investigation — useful for complex cross-service issues.

## What's Next?

- [Deep Investigation](/features/deep-investigation) — how the investigation workflow works
- [Skills](/features/skills) — create reusable diagnostic playbooks
- [Memory](/features/memory) — how investigation history improves future diagnoses
