In one embodiment, a supervisory device in a network identifies a workaround for a symptom exhibited by a particular device in the network by traversing a path in a symptom-problem graph. The path in the graph includes a symptom vertex that represents the symptom, a problem vertex that shares an edge with the symptom vertex and represents a problem that causes the symptom, and a workaround vertex that shares an edge with the problem vertex and represents the workaround for the symptom. The supervisory device causes the identified workaround to be applied to the particular device and updates the path in the graph to replace the workaround vertex with a fix vertex that represents a fix for the problem that causes the symptom exhibited by the particular device. The supervisory device causes the fix to be applied to the particular device based on the updated path in the graph.