Also that it's in the correct folder

Poor Yorick!

How much time I've wasted unknowingly editing generated files, out of version files, forgetting to save, ... only god knows.

Yep, this is a variation of "check the plug"

I find myself doing this all the time now I will temporarily add a line to cause a fatal error, to check that it's the right file (and, depending on the situation, also the right line)

This is also covered by "make it fail"

I'm glad I'm not the only one doing this after I wasted too much time trying to figure out why my docker build was not reflecting the changes ... never again..

That's why you make it break differently first. To see your changes have any effect.

When working on a test that has several asserts, I have adopted the process of adding one final assert, "assert 'TEST DEBUGGED' is False", so that even when I succeed, the test fails -- and I could review to consider if any other tests should be added or adjusted.

Once I'm satisfied with the test, I remove the line.

very first order of business: git stash && git checkout main && git pull

...and you are building and running the correct clone of a repository

the biggest thing I've always told myself and anyone ive taught: make sure youre running the code you think youre running.

Baby steps, if the foundation is shaky no amount of reasoning on top is going to help.