Technical & DevelopmentIntermediate
variant-analysis
Find similar vulnerabilities via pattern-based analysis
Developer Setup
Setup & Installation
bash
npx skills add https://github.com/trailofbits/skills --skill variant-analysisnpx skills add https://github.com/trailofbits/skills --skill variant-analysisOr paste this URL into your assistant to install:
Overview
What This Skill Does
Variant analysis skill for finding similar vulnerabilities across a codebase after an initial bug is identified. It guides systematic pattern generalization using ripgrep, Semgrep, and CodeQL, moving from exact matches to broader search patterns while tracking false positive rates. Covers interprocedural analysis, taint tracking, and structured triage of results.
Application
When to use this Skill
- Configuring integration settings for custom agent workflows.
- Optimizing query execution and response latency in production.
- Developing clean, standard-compliant implementations for enterprise services.
- Troubleshooting connection timeouts and authentication handshakes.
- Monitoring API rate limits and execution pipelines programmatically.
Documentation
Show Skills.md file
Variant Analysis
Find similar vulnerabilities and bugs across codebases using pattern-based analysis.
Author: Axel Mierczuk
When to Use
Use this skill when you need to:
- Hunt for bug variants after finding an initial vulnerability
- Build CodeQL or Semgrep queries from a known bug pattern
- Perform systematic code audits across large codebases
- Analyze security vulnerabilities and find similar instances
- Create reusable patterns for recurring vulnerability classes
What It Does
This skill provides a systematic five-step process for variant analysis:
- Understand the original issue - Identify root cause, conditions, and exploitability
- Create an exact match - Start with a pattern matching only the known bug
- Identify abstraction points - Determine what can be generalized
- Iteratively generalize - Expand patterns one element at a time
- Analyze and triage - Document and prioritize findings
Includes:
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