Ethereum execution is deterministic, but understanding why a transaction behaved the way it did can still be difficult. The useful part of debugging begins when traces become readable, contextual and comparable.
Start with the execution path
A good trace is more than a list of opcodes. It should make calls, state transitions, gas consumption and reverts easy to follow. The goal is to reduce the amount of context a developer must reconstruct manually.
Debugging improves when evidence becomes navigable rather than merely available.
Map state, not just calls
Storage changes often explain more than the visible call tree. Looking at before-and-after values, affected contracts and the exact instruction that caused a mutation can shorten investigations dramatically.
Build workflows around repeatability
Save known-good traces, compare failures against them, and keep the environment reproducible. That turns isolated investigations into reusable engineering knowledge.