Env Doctor: Diagnosing Environment Issues with AI Agent Skills

"It works on my machine" is still one of the most common developer problems in 2026. When you clone a repo, switch branches, or onboard to a new project and something breaks, the first 20 minutes are usually wasted guessing. The env-doctor skill changes that.

What env-doctor does

Env-doctor is a SKILL.md skill that systematically diagnoses why your development environment isn't working. Instead of throwing cryptic error messages at you, it works through a structured checklist:

Runtime versions: Is the correct version of Node, Python, Ruby, Go, or Java installed? Does it match what the project expects?

Dependencies: Are all packages installed? Are there version conflicts? Is the lock file in sync with the manifest?

Environment variables: Are required .env variables set? Are they pointing to the right values?

Database connections: Can the app connect to its database? Is the database running?

Port conflicts: Is the expected port already in use by another process?

Build artifacts: Do compiled files exist? Are they stale?

How it works

When you ask Claude "why won't this project start" or "diagnose my environment," the env-doctor skill activates and runs through each category in order. It reports what it finds at each step — what's correct, what's missing, and what's misconfigured.

The output is actionable: instead of a wall of errors, you get specific things to fix in priority order.

Installing env-doctor

# Download from Agensi
# Unzip to your skills directory
unzip env-doctor.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

# Also works on OpenClaw
cp -r ~/.claude/skills/env-doctor ~/.openclaw/skills/

Free on Agensi.

When to use it

Use env-doctor whenever you hit a "doesn't start" situation: cloning a new repo, pulling changes that update dependencies, switching between branches with different requirements, onboarding to a team project, or returning to a project after time away.

It's one of those skills that you don't need every day, but when you need it, it saves 30 minutes of frustration.

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Get env-doctor and other developer skills on Agensi.