How to Ask for Help

Asking for help is a professional skill. A well-formed question gets answered in minutes. A vague one gets bounced back.

6.1 The 30-Minute Rule

Quick Reference

Stuck less than 30 min — keep digging.

Stuck more than 30 min — POST IN HELP & QUESTIONS NOW.

No question is too basic. The channel exists for exactly this.

6.2 The Perfect Help Request Template

 Problem: I get "Cannot read properties of undefined" when dropping a task between lists.

 Where: src/features/tasks/kanban-board.tsx, line 47  |  Branch: sj/feat/drag-drop

 What I tried:
  1. console.log(over) — prints undefined when dropping between lists
  2. Checked dnd-kit docs for onDragEnd — looks correct

 Relevant code: [paste 10-20 lines]

Watch Out

Do NOT post "it's broken" or "it's not working" without any context.

Do NOT paste 200 lines. Isolate the relevant 10-20 lines.

Do NOT DM your mentor — post publicly so others can learn from the answer too.

6.3 Rubber Duck Debugging

Before posting, explain the problem out loud to yourself line by line. You'll solve ~40% of bugs this way.

6.4 Useful Debugging Techniques

console.log() everything. Add logs at every step until the value goes wrong.
Read the FULL error message including the stack trace.
Check TypeScript errors first — most runtime bugs are actually compile-time errors.
Check the Network tab in DevTools. Server Action failures show as 500 responses.
Isolate: comment out code until it works, then add back line by line.
Search the exact error message in quotes on Google.