Render Debug

RenderOfficialCreated by Render

Skill
Tool integration
Cloud and DevOps
MIT
Low risk

From the author

Debug failed Render deployments by analyzing logs, metrics, and database state. Identifies errors (missing env vars, port binding, OOM, etc.) and suggests fixes. Use when deployments fail, services won't start, or users mention errors, logs, or debugging.

— the description by Render

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

The render-debug skill provides a structured approach to troubleshooting Render services. It guides users through identifying failed services, retrieving relevant logs, analyzing performance metrics, and querying database state to pinpoint root causes like configuration errors, resource exhaustion, or connection issues. The skill integrates with Render's MCP tools to automate data collection and suggests common fixes for identified error patterns.

What it does

Lists and inspects status of Render services and deployments
Retrieves and filters build, runtime, and HTTP error logs
Analyzes CPU, memory, and latency metrics to identify performance bottlenecks
Queries PostgreSQL instances to diagnose connection and query performance issues
Maps common error patterns to actionable remediation steps
Provides workflows for verifying fixes through log and metric validation

When to use it

When a Render deployment fails to complete
When a service crashes or fails to start
When application health checks are timing out
When users report production errors or performance degradation
When diagnosing database connection or query latency problems

Advantages

Standardizes the debugging process for Render environments
Reduces manual log searching by targeting specific error types
Provides direct access to database diagnostics via SQL queries
Offers clear remediation paths for common configuration and resource issues

Usage examples

“My service is failing to deploy on Render, can you help?”: The agent will list your services, identify the failed one, retrieve the relevant build logs, and analyze them against known error patterns to suggest a fix.
“My app is running very slowly, check the metrics.”: The agent will fetch CPU, memory, and HTTP latency metrics for the service to determine if resource constraints or slow database queries are the cause.
“I am getting ECONNREFUSED errors from my database.”: The agent will check the database status, analyze active connection counts, and query pg_stat_activity to identify potential connection pool exhaustion.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/render-oss/render-debug/download

Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip render-debug.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Render

Debug Render Deployments

Analyze deployment failures using logs, metrics, and database queries. Identify root causes and apply fixes.

When to Use This Skill

Activate this skill when:

Deployment fails on Render
Service won't start or keeps crashing
User mentions errors, logs, or debugging
Health checks are timing out
Application errors in production
Performance issues (slow responses)
Database connection problems

Render Access

Before reading logs, metrics, or database state, follow references/render-access.md to establish access and verify the intended workspace. Prefer MCP when available; the CLI can provide logs and deploy status, while metrics and structured database queries require MCP.

Debugging Workflow

When the failure involves configuration or secrets, read references/environment-variables.md before inspecting or changing service variables. When the failure involves deploy state, rollout, health checks, restart, rollback, or shutdown, read references/deployments.md before diagnosing it.

Step 1: Identify Failed Service

list_services()

If MCP isn't configured, ask whether to set it up (preferred) or continue with CLI. Then proceed.

Look for services with failed status. Get details:

get_service(serviceId: "<id>")

Step 2: Retrieve Logs

Build/Deploy Logs (most failures):

list_logs(resource: ["<service-id>"], type: ["build"], limit: 200)

Runtime Error Logs:

list_logs(resource: ["<service-id>"], level: ["error"], limit: 100)

Search for Specific Errors:

list_logs(resource: ["<service-id>"], text: ["KeyError", "ECONNREFUSED"], limit: 50)

HTTP Error Logs:

list_logs(resource: ["<service-id>"], statusCode: ["500", "502", "503"], limit: 50)

Step 3: Analyze Error Patterns

Match log errors against known patterns:

Error	Log Pattern	Common Fix
MISSING_ENV_VAR	`KeyError`, `not defined`	Add to render.yaml or `update_environment_variables`
PORT_BINDING	`EADDRINUSE`	Use `0.0.0.0:$PORT`
MISSING_DEPENDENCY	`Cannot find module`	Add to package.json/requirements.txt
DATABASE_CONNECTION	`ECONNREFUSED :5432`	Check DATABASE_URL, DB status
HEALTH_CHECK	`Health check timeout`	Add /health endpoint, check port binding
OUT_OF_MEMORY	`heap out of memory`, exit 137	Optimize memory or upgrade plan
BUILD_FAILURE	`Command failed`	Fix build command or dependencies

Full error catalog: references/error-patterns.md

If errors repeat across deploys: Switch from incremental fixes to a broader sweep. Scan the codebase/config for all likely causes in that error class (related env vars, build config, dependencies, or type errors) and address them together before the next redeploy.

Step 4: Check Metrics (Performance Issues)

For crashes, slow responses, or resource issues:

get_metrics(
  resourceId: "<service-id>",
  metricTypes: ["cpu_usage", "memory_usage", "memory_limit"]
)

get_metrics(
  resourceId: "<service-id>",
  metricTypes: ["http_latency"],
  httpLatencyQuantile: 0.95
)

Detailed metrics guide: references/metrics-debugging.md

Step 5: Debug Database Issues

For database-related errors:

# Check database status
list_postgres_instances()

# Check connections
get_metrics(resourceId: "<postgres-id>", metricTypes: ["active_connections"])

# Query directly
query_render_postgres(
  postgresId: "<postgres-id>",
  sql: "SELECT state, count(*) FROM pg_stat_activity GROUP BY state"
)

Detailed database guide: references/database-debugging.md

Step 6: Apply Fix

For environment variables:

update_environment_variables(
  serviceId: "<service-id>",
  envVars: [{"key": "MISSING_VAR", "value": "value"}]
)

For code changes:

Edit the source file
Commit and push
Deploy triggers automatically (if auto-deploy enabled)

Step 7: Verify Fix

# Check deploy status
list_deploys(serviceId: "<service-id>", limit: 1)

# Check for new errors
list_logs(resource: ["<service-id>"], level: ["error"], limit: 20)

# Check metrics
get_metrics(resourceId: "<service-id>", metricTypes: ["http_request_count"])

Quick Workflows

Pre-built debugging sequences for common scenarios:

Scenario	Workflow
Deploy failed	`list_deploys` → `list_logs(type: build)` → fix → redeploy
App crashing	`list_logs(level: error)` → `get_metrics(memory)` → fix
App slow	`get_metrics(http_latency)` → `get_metrics(cpu)` → `query_postgres`
DB connection	`list_postgres` → `get_metrics(connections)` → `query_postgres`
Post-deploy check	`list_deploys` → `list_logs(error)` → `get_metrics`

Detailed workflows: references/quick-workflows.md

Quick Reference

MCP Tools

# Service Discovery
list_services()
get_service(serviceId: "<id>")
list_postgres_instances()

# Logs
list_logs(resource: ["<id>"], level: ["error"], limit: 100)
list_logs(resource: ["<id>"], type: ["build"], limit: 200)
list_logs(resource: ["<id>"], text: ["search"], limit: 50)

# Metrics
get_metrics(resourceId: "<id>", metricTypes: ["cpu_usage", "memory_usage"])
get_metrics(resourceId: "<id>", metricTypes: ["http_latency"], httpLatencyQuantile: 0.95)

# Database
query_render_postgres(postgresId: "<id>", sql: "SELECT ...")

# Deployments
list_deploys(serviceId: "<id>", limit: 5)

# Environment Variables
update_environment_variables(serviceId: "<id>", envVars: [{key, value}])

CLI Commands (Fallback)

render services -o json
render logs -r <service-id> --level error -o json
render logs -r <service-id> --tail -o text
render deploys create <service-id> --wait

References

Render access: references/render-access.md
Environment variables: references/environment-variables.md
Compute plans: references/compute-plans.md
Deployments: references/deployments.md
Error patterns: references/error-patterns.md
Metrics debugging: references/metrics-debugging.md
Database debugging: references/database-debugging.md
Quick workflows: references/quick-workflows.md
Log analysis: references/log-analysis.md
Troubleshooting: references/troubleshooting.md

render-deploy — Deploy new applications to Render
render-monitor — Ongoing service health monitoring
render-mcp — MCP server setup and capability discovery

Current documentation retrieval

Whenever this skill directs you to consult current Render documentation:

Retrieve the linked Markdown document directly with an available URL-fetching tool or HTTP client, such as curl. Do not substitute web-search summaries for the document.
Confirm that retrieval succeeded and returned the expected document, then read its contents. Saving a file or printing its path is not sufficient.
If the request fails or your tool cannot read the Markdown response, open and read the linked HTML version instead.
If neither version can be retrieved, disclose that the current reference is unavailable and follow any topic-specific fallback in the skill. Use bundled guidance only for stable constraints, and do not guess at changeable platform details.

When a task requires multiple references, apply this workflow to each one and distinguish the documents you verified from those that remain unavailable.

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer878 B
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer1.0 KiB
SKILL.md8.3 KiB
references/compute-plans.md2.3 KiB
references/database-debugging.md8.8 KiB
references/deployments.md7.9 KiB
references/environment-variables.md4.5 KiB
references/error-patterns.md18.7 KiB
references/log-analysis.md9.9 KiB
references/metrics-debugging.md6.4 KiB
references/quick-workflows.md6.2 KiB
references/render-access.md4.7 KiB
references/troubleshooting.md12.3 KiB

references/environment-variables.md

Environment variables and secrets

Render environment-variable values are strings. Applications must explicitly parse values that represent booleans, numbers, lists, or structured data; for example, the string "false" is truthy in many languages.

Environment variables can be managed through the Render Dashboard, Blueprints, environment groups, and supported API, MCP, or CLI operations. Before changing a service, determine which mechanism is intended to be the source of truth. Do not make parallel Dashboard and infrastructure-as-code edits without explaining how future syncs or deploys will reconcile them.

Never commit secret values to application source, render.yaml, checked-in .env files, fixtures, examples, or logs. Keep local secret-bearing .env files out of version control. Do not print or repeat secret values returned by the user, Render, or another provider. Use Render's supported secret mechanisms or an external secret manager appropriate to the user's workflow.

Before configuring environment variables, secret files, or environment groups, fetch the current Render configuration reference:

Using the documentation-retrieval workflow in the root SKILL.md, retrieve and read the Markdown reference or its HTML version.

Read the sections relevant to the configuration surface being used. Dashboard save options can rebuild and deploy, deploy the existing build, or save without deploying; do not assume a changed value is active until the applicable deploy occurs.

For Blueprint-managed variables, also consult the current Blueprint YAML reference before writing syntax or predicting update behavior. In particular:

Use literal value entries only for non-sensitive configuration.
generateValue: true creates a platform-generated secret when the variable does not already exist.
sync: false prompts for a value only during initial Blueprint creation. It is ignored for existing services during later Blueprint updates, is not included in preview environments, and is not valid in environment groups.
Use current fromDatabase, fromService, and fromGroup syntax instead of hardcoding connection strings or copying shared values.

Blueprint syncs preserve existing service environment variables that are omitted from the Blueprint; omission does not delete them. Values defined with fromDatabase or fromService refresh on each Blueprint sync, not immediately when the referenced property or variable changes.

Environment groups provide shared variables and secret files to linked services. A variable defined directly on a service takes precedence over the same key from a linked group. Precedence between multiple linked groups with the same key is not guaranteed; avoid collisions instead of depending on group creation order. Respect project-environment scoping when linking groups to services.

Use secret files for credentials or configuration that must be read from the filesystem rather than an environment variable. Confirm current size and runtime-path rules in the fetched reference. Treat secret-file contents with the same precautions as other credentials.

Render also injects documented default environment variables. Do not maintain a memorized catalog. Fetch the current default-variable reference when a task depends on a variable's name, availability, build/runtime scope, or semantics:

Using the documentation-retrieval workflow in the root SKILL.md, retrieve and read the Markdown reference or its HTML version.

Depend only on documented platform variables. Other RENDER_* variables are internal and can change without notice.

Treat environment-variable changes as service configuration mutations. Confirm the target workspace and service, inspect the existing keys without exposing their values, and preserve variables outside the user's requested scope. Before using an API, MCP, or CLI operation, check whether it patches individual keys or replaces the complete collection. After the applicable deploy, verify that required keys are present and that the service starts successfully without logging secret values.

If the current references or live configuration cannot be inspected, do not guess at secret behavior, precedence, or replacement semantics. Preserve existing configuration where possible and explain what must be confirmed before making the change.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs an MCP server

The author says: Requires Render MCP tools or CLI

Security

What our scanner noticed· Low risk

Instructions that use the network

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Created by

Render

Publisher

Render (Official)

Source

render-oss/skills · skills/render-debug · commit b985a63

Licence

MIT License (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-08

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Render.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download render-debug.zip