web-app-penetration-testing

SKILL.md

Pentest a web application

Black-box (and optionally source-assisted) penetration testing of a running web app with Strix's autonomous agents. Every reported finding is validated with a working exploit, so there are no signature-based false positives to triage.

Install, LLM setup, all CLI flags, and the managed-cloud alternative are covered in the penetration-testing-with-strix skill — read it if the target is not a running web app, or if strix --version fails. For a run with no Docker and no LLM key, the same binary drives the managed platform: strix cloud login, then strix cloud scans start ... (details in managed-pentesting-with-strix). This skill is the web-app-specific workflow.

1. Confirm authorization and scope

Before running anything, establish:

The target is the user's (or they are explicitly authorized to test it). Never pentest a third-party site on a hunch.

Which environment. Prefer staging over production; agents send real exploit payloads and will create/modify data.

Out-of-scope paths — payment flows, mass-email endpoints, admin destructive actions, third-party SSO providers.

Credentials. Most real vulnerabilities live behind login. Without a test account, the agents only ever see the marketing surface.

Ask for anything missing rather than guessing.

2. Run the scan