← LeaderboardThe Skill Leaderboard

trailmark-variant-neighborhood

Expands one confirmed or suspected vulnerability into a Trailmark graph neighborhood of variant candidates by finding sibling functions, shared callers and callees, common sensitive sinks, common entrypoint paths, interface implementations, override relationships, type/reference neighbors, and structurally similar nodes. Use after one issue is found to seed variant-analysis, semgrep-rule-creator, static-analysis, or manual review with graph-derived candidate locations.

Published by trailofbits ↗trailofbits/skills

Try your first task

trailmark-variant-neighborhood

Start a fresh conversation. Replace the highlighted placeholders.

Use trailmark-variant-neighborhood to expand the confirmed or plausible, graph-bound seed finding [finding and location] within [repository scope] into ranked variant candidates, exclusions, limitations, and a handoff packet for semantic review without claiming candidates are vulnerabilities.

Required inputs

  • [finding and location]
  • [repository scope]

User-approved starter prompt based on a pinned source version; check current skill requirements before running. Task evidence ↗

SKILL.md

name: trailmark-variant-neighborhooddescription: "Expands one confirmed or suspected vulnerability into a Trailmark graph neighborhood of variant candidates by finding sibling functions, shared callers and callees, common sensitive sinks, common entrypoint paths, interface implementations, override relationships, type/reference neighbors, and structurally similar nodes. Use after one issue is found to seed variant-analysis, semgrep-rule-creator, static-analysis, or manual review with graph-derived candidate locations."allowed-tools:   - Bash  - Read  - Grep  - Glob  - Write

Trailmark Variant Neighborhood

Expand one seed issue into graph-derived variant candidates. This skill generates review targets, not confirmed findings.

When to Use

  • A finding is confirmed or plausible and variants may exist
  • The vulnerable pattern depends on call context
  • The issue involves a shared sink, source, validator, interface, override, trait, hook, handler, adapter, or critical type
  • The next step is to seed variant-analysis, semgrep-rule-creator, static-analysis, or manual review

When NOT to Use

  • No seed issue exists. Use discovery or triage first.
  • The pattern is purely syntactic and already obvious. Use semgrep-rule-creator directly.
  • The question is exploit-chain composition across multiple findings. Use a composition workflow.
  • The goal is remediation verification. Use a remediation-review workflow.
  • The seed cannot be bound to a graph node.

Rationalizations to Reject

RationalizationWhy It Is WrongRequired Action
"Nearby code means variant"Proximity is only a candidate reasonRank it as a review target
"Only exact same names matter"Variants often share sinks or preconditions, not namesExpand across callers, callees, interfaces, and types
"Every candidate is a finding"This skill outputs candidates for reviewAvoid vulnerability claims
"Unreachable candidates can be ignored completely"They may become reachable after refactorsRank lower or list as deferred
"Graph candidates replace semantic pattern work"Graph structure finds locations, not root-cause semanticsHand off to variant-analysis, Semgrep, CodeQL, or manual review

Workflow

Variant Neighborhood Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Normalize and bind the seed
- [ ] Step 2: Expand graph neighborhoods
- [ ] Step 3: Rank candidates
- [ ] Step 4: Extract variant pattern guidance
- [ ] Step 5: Emit handoff packet

Step 1: Normalize And Bind The Seed

Accept finding text, file/line, function name, or output from trailmark-finding-triage. Bind the seed to a Trailmark node and record the root cause in plain language.

If the seed has no concrete graph binding, stop before inventing variants.

Step 2: Expand Neighborhoods

Use the dimensions in references/neighborhood-patterns.md:

  • shared callers
  • shared callees and sinks
  • entrypoint path neighbors
  • interface, override, trait, and implementation siblings
  • file or module cluster neighbors
  • taint or privilege-boundary peers
  • type and state-reference neighbors

Bound expansion to avoid candidate floods.

Step 3: Rank Candidates

Rank with references/ranking.md. Prioritize entrypoint-reachable, tainted, boundary-adjacent, high-blast-radius, shared sink, same-interface, and close-distance candidates. Penalize test, mock, generated, vendor, unreachable, and trusted-internal-only candidates.

Step 4: Extract Pattern Guidance

Summarize what should be searched for syntactically and what requires semantic review. Identify whether follow-up belongs in:

  • variant-analysis
  • semgrep-rule-creator
  • static-analysis with CodeQL or SARIF-producing tools
  • manual review

Step 5: Emit Handoff Packet

Use references/output-format.md. Include ranked candidates, inclusion reasons, exclusions, limitations, and the variant-analysis handoff.

Stop Conditions

  • No graph binding exists
  • Candidate count is too high and the root cause is underspecified
  • Trailmark cannot analyze the target language
  • The seed is only in test, generated, or vendor code and the user did not say that code is in scope
trailmark-variant-neighborhood by trailofbits · The Skill Leaderboard