majiayu000 Finding Discipline
Overview
The Iron Law: No [CONFIRMED] without proof. A finding is a claim about real, demonstrated
impact — not a status code, a reflected string, or a hunch. This is the offensive equivalent of
test-driven development: the proof is the test, and the finding does not exist until it passes.
Violating the letter of this rule is violating its spirit.
The three tiers
[CONFIRMED]— impact demonstrated AND grounded in an evidence artifact that exists on disk.[POSSIBLE]— reachable but the class proof bar is not yet met. Keep digging; do not report as real.[INFO]— true but no security impact at the claimed severity.
The proof bar (per class)
A status code is not impact. See skills/references/finding-evidence-standards.md:
SSRF needs the internal response; IDOR needs another principal's data; RCE needs command output;
XSS needs script execution; open redirect needs an external destination.
Required mechanical gate
Before any finding is recorded or reported:
- Set the structured proof signal and run
python skills/vulnerability-analysis/scripts/validate_findings.py --findings f.json --evidence ./evidence— it rejects ungrounded findings and per-class false positives. - Pass it through the REQUIRED
finding-validatoragent (PASS / KILL / DOWNGRADE). - Only a
[CONFIRMED]survivor goes in the report. Severity must match what was demonstrated (CVSS honest).
See skills/references/finding-validation-runtime.md for the 7-question gate.
Red Flags — STOP, downgrade to [POSSIBLE]
- "I'm sure it's exploitable" (but haven't shown impact)
- "The payload reflected, so it's XSS" / "I got a 200, so it works"
- "The DNS callback fired" (SSRF with no internal response)
- "I changed the id and got data" (but it was my own — self-IDOR)
- "It probably works on a real target" (default-deployment unproven)
All of these mean: it is [POSSIBLE], not [CONFIRMED]. Get the evidence.
Rationalizations
| Excuse | Reality |
|---|---|
| "Pattern-matched, clearly vulnerable" | Pattern ≠ exploit. Demonstrate impact or it's POSSIBLE. |
| "I'll attach evidence later" | No artifact on disk = ungrounded = REJECTED now. |
| "Blind RCE counts" | No output / no OOB confirmation = POSSIBLE, not CONFIRMED. |
| "Severity is obviously Critical" | CVSS must reflect demonstrated impact, not the worst case. |
| "The validator is overkill here" | Untested findings are how false positives ship. Run it. |
A short list of CONFIRMED findings beats a long list of POSSIBLEs. Killing a false positive is success.