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Mental Model

Think in competing hypotheses, not in favorite fixes. AKS troubleshooting improves when you separate symptom, failure layer, and likely cause.

Main Content

flowchart TD
    A[Symptom] --> B[Failure Layer]
    B --> C[Competing Hypotheses]
    C --> D[Evidence]
    D --> E[Disprove weak hypotheses]
    E --> F[Act on strongest explanation]

Practical model

  1. Name the symptom precisely.
  2. Identify the first broken layer.
  3. Write at least two plausible hypotheses.
  4. Collect evidence that can disprove each hypothesis.
  5. Change only one thing at a time when possible.

Example

If ingress returns 502:

  • Hypothesis A: backend pods are not Ready.
  • Hypothesis B: Service selector does not match pods.
  • Hypothesis C: ingress controller cannot reach endpoints due to network policy.

See Also

Sources