About this skill

Troubleshooting Context

When network symptoms appear as failed connections, high TTFB, TLS handshake failures, DNS errors, or video jitter, application logs alone are often insufficient. Captures from tcpdump, Wireshark, Fiddler, or Charles preserve packet-level evidence, but manually inspecting streams can miss details such as SYN retransmits, RST packets, zero-window events, retransmission rates, and TLS Alert codes. This skill is aimed at DevOps, network operations, and application troubleshooting workflows, turning capture files into actionable diagnostics.

How It Works

Input recognition: supports common formats such as .pcap, .pcapng, .cap, .saz, .chls, and .har, while distinguishing full traffic captures from HTTP proxy captures.
Filtering and analysis: extracts key streams using conditions like ip.addr, tcp.stream, tcp.analysis.retransmission, dns, and tls.handshake, then checks layers from L2 through L7.
Report output: usually includes a capture summary, anomaly timeline, key stream metrics, root-cause inference, remediation advice, and verification steps, with directly usable Wireshark or tcpdump filter expressions.
Context linkage: for security surveillance, structured cabling, building automation, or low-voltage acceptance issues, it can supplement industry references from the Smart Low-Voltage AI knowledge base, without replacing packet-level evidence.

Boundaries

The skill is useful for analyzing existing captures or deciding what to capture and how to verify a fix, but it cannot confirm server-side code logic, slow database queries, or application-internal state. Captures may contain IP addresses, cookies, tokens, or credentials, so they should be sanitized before sharing. For performance issues, prioritize quantified metrics such as RTT, TTFB, retransmission rate, and throughput before attributing the problem to the network, operating system, or application.

Editor's note

Written for AI Agent Hub. This is separate from the publisher description above.

What problem it solves

You have a capture from Wireshark, tcpdump, or a similar tool and you want help naming the failure: a reset, a timeout, a TLS alert you can verify. The skill is a second pair of eyes on packets you are allowed to hold.

Who it is for

An operator in a lab or on a host they administer, with a capture trimmed to the flow in question, and a console that still works if the advice is wrong.

Who should skip it

Skip a raw capture from a café, a classroom, or any network where other people's traffic appears. Cookies and tokens ride along. The IT shelf exists to say this before the download count does. Skip it if the prompt's real verb is "generate attacks" rather than "explain this flow." That work belongs in a lab and, for Harness plugins, under admin-security, not in a casual install. Skip it on production firewalls for the first run.

First three steps

Trim a capture to a flow you already understand, from a machine you are allowed to sniff. Confirm no unrelated cookies remain.
Ask what the trace shows, and which frame supports the claim.
Open that frame in Wireshark. If the skill's story matches the frame, it is a reading aid. If it invents a host that is not in the file, remove it. Do not apply a firewall change from the same chat.

Alternatives on this site

A workflow plugin checks a diff. It does not read pcaps. A code skill will not explain a handshake. If you need a longer context model because the capture text is huge, trim harder before you buy a bigger window.

Questions

Can I upload the pcap to see what happens? Not the raw one. Trim first, or do not.

Will it stay current with new TLS versions? Only if the publisher updates the prompt. Check the upstream date. Our sort will not.

Screenshots

Use Cases

DevOps needs to determine whether high HTTPS TTFB is caused by DNS, TLS, or slow server processing from a capture.
Network engineers analyze TCP retransmissions and RST in customer pcapng files to localize connection failures to client, link, or server.
Application troubleshooters inspect HTTP and HTTPS requests in Fiddler .saz files to check status codes, TTFB, and response issues.
Low-voltage project engineers combine captures with GB50311 acceptance checks to debug surveillance lag, camera dropouts, or cabling faults.

Best For

DevOps engineers debugging production networks need Wireshark captures turned into reviewable root causes and verification steps.
Application engineers handling HTTPS, DNS, or timeout complaints need packet evidence to separate client, server, and network issues.
Low-voltage project engineers performing acceptance testing need to debug surveillance, access control, or cabling issues against construction standards.
Security operations engineers need to screen captures for certificate anomalies, port scans, ARP spoofing signs, or plaintext sensitive fields.