differential-review
Performs security-focused differential review of code changes.
Skill by trailofbits
Chalk Labs
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Install
Works with Claude Code, Claude apps, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, OpenCode, Goose, Windsurf. Read the repository before you give any tool access to your data.
npx agentmarket install skill/trailofbits-differential-review
Asks which of your tools to add it to (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, Claude Desktop) and shows the change first. See https://agentmart.dev/cli.
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About
Use cases: documents, testing, security
Reviews
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Permissions
What this skill can do and what it asks for, from its SKILL.md. Checked Oct 25, 2026.
- Tools
- No tools found
- Secrets
- None asked for
- Install scripts
- None found
Network hosts it talks to 1
codeload.github.com· found in install command
Files it touches
~/.claude/skills/differential-review
Tools it pre-approves 5
From allowed-tools in SKILL.md: the agent may use these without asking you each time.
ReadWriteGrepGlobBash
What's inside
- Skill name
differential-review- Description
- Performs security-focused differential review of code changes. Adapts analysis depth to codebase size, uses git blame for context, calculates blast radius by counting callers, checks test coverage of modified code, and generates a markdown report. Use when reviewing a PR, commit, or diff for security vulnerabilities, checking whether a change re-introduces a previously fixed bug, asking what else a change could break, or finding which modified code has no test covering it.
- License
- CC-BY-SA-4.0
- Allowed tools
- Read, Write, Grep, Glob, Bash
- Instructions
- 221 lines in SKILL.md · view on GitHub
Before installing
- Pre-approves any shell command
Files (7)
- SKILL.md
- adversarial.md
- openai.yaml · agents/
- trail-of-bits-mark.svg · assets/
- methodology.md
- patterns.md
- reporting.md
SKILL.md (first lines)
# Differential Security Review
Security-focused code review for PRs, commits, and diffs.
## Core Principles
1. **Risk-First**: Focus on auth, crypto, value transfer, external calls
2. **Evidence-Based**: Every finding backed by git history, line numbers, attack scenarios
3. **Adaptive**: Scale to codebase size (SMALL/MEDIUM/LARGE)
4. **Honest**: Explicitly state coverage limits and confidence level
5. **Output-Driven**: Always generate comprehensive markdown report file
---
## Rationalizations (Do Not Skip)
| Rationalization | Why It's Wrong | Required Action |
|-----------------|----------------|-----------------|
| "Small PR, quick review" | Heartbleed was 2 lines | Classify by RISK, not size |
| "I know this codebase" | Familiarity breeds blind spots | Build explicit baseline context |
| "Git history takes too long" | History reveals regressions | Never skip Phase 1 |
| "Blast radius is obvious" | You'll miss transitive callers | Calculate quantitatively |
| "No tests = not my problem" | Missing tests = elevated risk rating | Flag in report, elevate severity |
| "Just a refactor, no security impact" | Refactors break invariants | Analyze as HIGH until proven LOW |
| "I'll explain verbally" | No artifact = findings lost | Always write report |
---
## Quick Reference
### Codebase Size Strategy
| Codebase Size | Strategy | Approach |
|---------------|----------|----------|
| SMALL (<20 files) | DEEP | Read all deps, full git blame |
| MEDIUM (20-200) | FOCUSED | 1-hop deps, priority files |
| LARGE (200+) | SURGICAL | Critical paths only |
### Risk Level Triggers
| Risk Level | Triggers |
|------------|----------|
| HIGH | Auth, crypto, external calls, value transfer, validation removal |
| MEDIUM | Business logic, state changes, new public APIs |
| LOW | Comments, tests, UI, logging |
---
## Workflow Overview
```
Pre-Analysis → Phase 0: Triage → Phase 1: Code Analysis → Phase 2: Test Coverage
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Phase 3: Blast Radius → Phase 4: Deep Context → Phase 5: Adversarial → Phase 6: Report
```
---
## Decision Tree
**Starting a review?**
```
├─ Need detailed phase-by-phase methodology?
│ └─ Read: methodology.md
│ (Pre-Analysis + Phases 0-4: triage, code analysis, test coverage, blast radius)
│
├─ Analyzing HIGH RISK change?
│ ├─ Read: adversarial.md
│ │ (Phase 5: Attacker modeling, exploit scenarios, exploitability rating)
│ └─ Or delegate to: differential-review:adversarial-modeler agent
│ (Autonomous attacker modeling with concrete exploit scenarios)
│
├─ Writing the final report?
│ └─ Read: reporting.md
│ (Phase 6: Report structure, templates, formatting guidelines)
│
├─ Looking for specific vulnerability patterns?
│ └─ Read: patterns.md
│ (Regressions, reentrancy, access control, overflow, etc.)
│
└─ Quick triage only?
└─ Use Quick Reference above, skip detailed docs
```
---
## Agents
**`differential-review:adversarial-modeler`** — Models attacker perspectives and
builds exploit scenarios for HIGH RISK code changes. Follows the 5-step
adversarial methodology (attacker model, attack vectors, exploitability rating,
exploit scenario, baseline cross-reference) and produces structured vulnerability
reports. Delegate to this agent when Phase 5 analysis is needed on high-risk
changes, passing that full namespaced name as `subagent_type` — a bare
`adversarial-modeler` is unregistered and the dispatch fails at runtime.
---
## Quality Checklist
Before delivering:
- [ ] All changed files analyzed
- [ ] Git blame on removed security code
- [ ] Blast radius calculated for HIGH risk
- [ ] Attack scenarios are concrete (not generic)
- [ ] Findings reference specific line numbers + commits
- [ ] Report file generated
- [ ] User notified with summary
---
## Integration
**audit-context-building skill:**
- Pre-Analysis: Build baseline context
- Phase 4: Deep context on HIGH RISK changesFrom trailofbits/skills, CC-BY-SA-4.0.
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Signals
- Stars
- 7,783
- Forks
- 671
- Open issues
- 30
- Last commit (this folder)
- Sep 16, 2026 (1 month ago)
From GitHub (fetched Oct 24, 2026).
Details
- License
- CC-BY-SA-4.0
- Repository
- github.com/trailofbits/skills
- First seen
- Oct 24, 2026
- Last checked
- Oct 24, 2026
- Source
- GitHubgithub-graphql
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- 0.767score
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Triages a repository's open GitHub issues and pull requests via the gh CLI.
SkillAFreshness: A★ 7.8KClaude Code +9 - 0.767score
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Analyzes smart contract codebases to identify state-changing entry points for security auditing.
SkillAFreshness: A★ 7.8KClaude Code +9 - 0.767score
interpreting-culture-index
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Interprets Culture Index (CI) surveys, behavioral profiles, and personality assessment data.
SkillAFreshness: A★ 7.8KClaude Code +9 - 0.767score
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Scans Android APKs for Firebase security misconfigurations including open databases, storage buckets, authentication issues, and exposed cloud functions.
SkillAFreshness: A★ 7.8KClaude Code +9 - 0.767score
dimensional-analysis
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Audits code for unit and decimal-scaling bugs and annotates it with dimensional comments recording the units of each value.
SkillAFreshness: A★ 7.8KClaude Code - 0.767score
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Draws the 12 Houses of the Zodiac Tarot spread to inject entropy into planning when prompts are vague, ambiguous, or casually delegated.
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Cite this page
differential-review skill. Agent Mart. https://agentmart.dev/skills/trailofbits-differential-review (last updated 2026-10-24)