dwarf-expert

The dwarf-expert skill provides specialized expertise for analyzing and understanding DWARF debug information embedded in compiled binaries. It focuses on DWARF versions 3, 4, and 5, helping developers inspect, validate, parse, and interpret debug data generated by compilers. The skill supports workflows involving DWARF-aware tooling, debug section inspection, and codebases that consume or manipulate DWARF structures. It is designed to assist with technical questions about the DWARF standard as well as practical tasks involving real binaries and DWARF parsing libraries.

Core capabilities include guidance for using tools such as `dwarfdump`, `llvm-dwarfdump`, and `readelf` to extract and verify debug information. The skill also provides support for structural validation workflows using `llvm-dwarfdump --verify`, quality analysis through `--statistics`, and interpretation of compilation units, DIE relationships, line tables, and address ranges. In addition, it references authoritative DWARF resources including the official DWARF specifications, LLVM’s DWARF implementation, and libdwarf. The skill can assist with writing, reviewing, modifying, or analyzing code that interacts with DWARF data using libraries such as libdwarf, pyelftools, and gimli.

This skill is intended for systems programmers, compiler engineers, debugger developers, tooling maintainers, and low-level software engineers who work with debug metadata in ELF binaries or related tooling ecosystems. Common use cases include validating compiler-generated DWARF information, troubleshooting malformed debug data, comparing debug info quality across builds, developing DWARF parsers, and answering specification-related questions about DWARF attributes, tags, and structures. The skill is not intended for executable runtime debugging, general reverse engineering, or DWARF v1/v2 analysis.