analytics-diagnostic-methodlisted

# Analytics diagnostic method The method senior analysts use when they don't know what caused something. It is boring, slow-looking, and dramatically more accurate than the "dashboard hunt" pattern most agents default to. If you remember one thing: **dashboards describe, they don't explain**. Getting from "traffic dropped 30%" to "the GA4 container got unpublished on Tuesday" requires a method, not a screenshot. ## When to use this - Any "why did X change?" question. - Any funnel or cohort comparison. - Any request for a recommendation based on analytics. - Any number the user is about to act on. ## When NOT to use this - Pure retrieval questions ("how many sessions yesterday?"). Just answer. - Definition questions ("what is engagement rate in GA4?"). Use `metric-context-and-benchmarks`. - Questions where the user has already diagnosed the cause and wants help implementing a fix. Don't re-diagnose. ## Don't fall back to manual data entry If the configured analytics tool's MCP server (or API) isn't connected, the correct move is to tell the user to install/connect it. Do **not** offer to read numbers the user pastes manually. The skills exist to automate the senior-analyst playbook against live data. A manual-paste workflow defeats that — the user has to already know the numbers (which is what they came to you for), and you lose the ability to drill, segment, cross-reference, or check sample size on the underlying queries. Worse, you end up doing the same dashboard-hu