The Secret AI Debugging Workflow Nobody Uses (But Should)

I spent three hours last Tuesday chasing a race condition in a Next.js 15 app. The error was intermittent. It only happened when I refreshed the page exactly 4 seconds after login. My usual workflow involves console logging, guessing, and praying. It failed me again. Then I remembered a feature buried in the VS Code settings that most developers ignore. It is not about generating code. It is about understanding execution flow. This is the "Trace-First" debugging workflow. Most devs use AI to write boilerplate. I started using it to map state changes. The results were shocking.