Testing vs Docs & Writing · both proven

systematic-debugging vs writing-plans

Both skills were run through Claude twice: once on a fixed brief without the skill, once with it. The briefs differ because each is written for the job the skill claims to do, so compare each skill against its own baseline, then decide which difference matters for your work. They are in different categories, so this is a choice of job, not a head-to-head on the same job.

systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes

Category: Testing
Source: obra/superpowers · 301,947 stars
License: MIT
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “A Node.js API returns 500 for about 1 in 200 requests to POST /orders. Logs show 'TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading "id")' at orders.js:48, which reads req.user.id. The route is behind an auth middleware. The failures started after a deploy that added a 30-second cache on the session lookup. Present your diagnosis and fix as a single HTML page: what you checked, in order, the root cause, the code change, and how you would confirm it is fixed.”
Skill commit: bb92a77

writing-plans

Use when you have a spec or requirements for a multi-step task, before touching code

Category: Docs & Writing
Source: obra/superpowers · 301,947 stars
License: MIT
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “Write the implementation plan for adding team accounts to a solo-user invoicing SaaS (Next.js, Postgres, Stripe): users must be able to create a team, invite members by email, assign owner or member roles, and share clients and invoices within the team, with billing moving from the user to the team. Present the plan as a single HTML page.”
Skill commit: bb92a77

We don’t pick a winner for you: the pages are the evidence. Both proofs can be repeated with the brief, model and commit shown above. See alternatives to systematic-debugging or alternatives to writing-plans.