Fable RedTeam

Execute safe, bounded, agentic ethical penetration testing and active vulnerability discovery.

Purpose

Provide an automated, reproducible offensive security audit engine to prove whether application defenses withstand real-world attack vectors. fable-redteam verifies API authentication, authorization boundaries, object isolation, and sensitive exposures in authorized staging/local environments, producing immediate remediation cards for implementation.

When to Use

• Active security testing is needed for local, staging, or authorized test targets.
• Verifying whether API endpoints enforce authentication and authorization (BOLA/IDOR).
• Testing for CORS misconfigurations, missing security headers, or leaked .env files.
• Simulating attacker-controlled requests against staging endpoints before release.
• Validating whether a previously applied security patch truly eliminates the vulnerability.

When NOT to Use

• Pure static code review or threat modeling without live target endpoints (use fable-security).
• Functional test runs or assertion checking without security probing (use fable-verify).
• Unauthorized public targets outside the explicitly configured scope.
• Stress testing or denial-of-service simulations (strictly out of scope).

Inputs

• target: Target HTTP/HTTPS URL or local repository path.
• profile: Scan depth (passive, api-logic, comprehensive, orchestrated, playbook, audit).
• scopeConfig: Optional custom scope JSON (defaults to .fable/redteam.json or local safe defaults). Supports allowedCidrs, maintenanceWindow, and automatic cloud metadata protection (169.254.169.254).
• authToken: Optional Bearer token for authenticated API probes.
• baseline: Optional path to prior .fable/redteam-findings.json for regression diffing.
• failOnCvss: Optional numeric CVSS v3.1 threshold (e.g. 7.0) to exit with status code 1 on CI/CD security violations.
• suppress: Optional list of finding fingerprints or IDs to ignore.

Operating Modes

• Guidance Mode: For targeted security queries, threat modeling, architecture review, or verifying a specific candidate finding. Does not write comprehensive audit artifacts or run all phases.
• Full Audit Mode: Complete 6-phase audit workflow across all attack surfaces, writing deterministic coverage ledgers and verified findings schemas. Triggered via get-fable redteam audit or --profile audit.

Expected Outputs

• redteam_findings: Array of validated vulnerability findings with CWE IDs, automated CVSS v3.1 vectors, numeric base scores, compliance taxonomy tags, and reproduction curl commands.
• docs/security/REDTEAM_REPORT.md: Comprehensive Markdown audit report with executive risk scorecard (A-F), MTTR estimate, and finding breakdowns.
• docs/security/REDTEAM_REPORT.sarif: OASIS SARIF v2.1.0 report for GitHub Advanced Security and enterprise SIEM/SOAR ingestion.
• findings.json: Machine-readable structured findings adhering strictly to report-schema.json, categorized by verdict (confirmed, needs_validation, rejected).
• coverage-ledger.json: Deterministic coverage ledger mapping checked surfaces and canonical RFC 3986 percent-encoded coverage IDs.
• architecture.md: Source-grounded threat boundary and component architecture map.
• FINDINGS-DETAIL.md: Detailed source traces, reproductions, and minimal effective code fixes.
• NEEDS-VALIDATION.md: Source-grounded leads requiring unobserved deployment facts with safe validation plans.
• .fable/run-attestation.json: Cryptographic SHA-256 tamper-evident attestation record.
• remediation_cards: Actionable Fable work cards ready for .fable/LEDGER.md.

Procedure

1. Scope Preflight: Verify the target URL against allowed host patterns, CIDR subnets, and excluded paths. Enforce cloud metadata guard (169.254.169.254) and active maintenance windows. Fail closed immediately if target is out of scope.
2. Phase 1 — Reconnaissance & Threat Modeling: Map architecture, lower-trust principals, authorization boundaries, entry surfaces, and execution sinks into architecture.md and seed coverage-ledger.json.
3. Phase 2 — Coverage-Led Hunting: Iterate ledger units across attack classes (Auth, IDOR, Injection, SSRF, Memory Safety, LLM, Supply Chain) with isolated hunter checks.
4. Phase 3 — Adversarial Candidate Validation: Subject every candidate to an independent verifier trying to disprove it. Classify findings strictly into:
   • confirmed: Complete source trace and demonstrated bounded observed result.
   • needs_validation: Source-grounded lead blocked by an unobserved deployment fact, with safe local and deployment plans.
   • rejected: Disproved candidate with explicit refutation rationale.
5. Phase 4 — Structured Output & Schema Validation: Write findings.json sorted by fingerprint and validate against report-schema.json using zero-dependency validator validateFindings(). Validate coverage ledger via validateCoverageLedger().
6. Phase 5 — Independent Record Verification: Verify final source claims, file line citations, and stable fingerprints without mixing evidence.
7. Phase 6 — Target-Neutral Reporting & Remediation: Generate REPORT.md, FINDINGS-DETAIL.md, and NEEDS-VALIDATION.md. Convert validated findings into actionable remediation work cards for .fable/LEDGER.md and automated regression tests.

Decision Rules

• If a target host does not match allowedHosts, allowedCidrs, or loopback defaults, refuse execution immediately without network calls.
• If target resolves to cloud instance metadata (169.254.169.254), abort immediately.
• If safe-mode is active, never execute database-dropping SQL payloads or unbounded fuzz loops.
• If circuit breaker trips to OPEN state, abort probe operations gracefully and report partial findings.
• If --fail-on-cvss is set and any unsuppressed finding meets or exceeds the threshold, exit with non-zero failure status for CI/CD gates.
• When all findings are resolved, transition to fable-verify or fable-release.

Tool Policy

• Use native TS HTTP probe (src/core/redteam/probe.ts) for zero-dependency execution across any host.
• Use native Cloudflare Audit Adapter (src/core/redteam/adapters/cloudflare.ts) and Audit Engine (src/core/redteam/audit/engine.ts) for 6-phase coverage-led audits and report-schema.json compliance.
• Reference the 14 specialized attack-class domain guides in skills/fable-redteam/references/cloudflare/ (AI-AND-LLM.md, WEB-PROTOCOL-AND-AUTH.md, CLIENT-SIDE.md, etc.).
• Optional external tools (Nuclei, Nmap, FFuf, Akto, HexStrike, CyberStrike, PentAGI, PentestAgent) may be orchestrated via adapters when available.
• Never write credentials or sensitive data into git-tracked files or public logs.

Evidence Requirements

• Findings must include the exact target URL, HTTP status code, CVSS v3.1 vector/score, compliance tags, and reproducible curl commands.
• Repaired vulnerabilities require a negative re-scan proving the attack vector now returns 401/403/404.
• Cryptographic run attestation verifies findings integrity.

Failure Handling

• On network connection errors or target timeouts, record the failure as an unresolved endpoint rather than a false negative.
• If rate limits are encountered, throttle request frequency or pause execution with backoff.
• On repeated target server errors, trigger the circuit breaker to prevent cascading denial-of-service.

Completion Criteria

• Complete execution of the selected scan or audit profile.
• Generated Markdown report at docs/security/REDTEAM_REPORT.md and SARIF at docs/security/REDTEAM_REPORT.sarif.
• When in audit mode, generated findings.json, coverage-ledger.json, and architecture.md passing schema validation.
• Generated run attestation at .fable/run-attestation.json.
• Remediation work cards formatted for .fable/LEDGER.md.