The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem. - Asking Smart Question

The XY approach can be perfectly legitimate. You’re a domain expert. You have a problem X. It’s a standard problem in your domain but only you can really understand it. However, you can see that a general purpose approach, Y, could solve it. Y might even sound complicated but is at least fully explainable whereas X isn’t easily explainable at all. - HN