stackhawk-optimize

A HawkScan optimisation procedure for tuning StackHawk security scans. HawkScan checks an application for security issues, while a scan policy controls which technologies and checks it uses.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when tuning a HawkScan scan, choosing plugins or technology flags, testing a revised policy, or correcting local StackHawk configuration.
Why use it?
It helps match the scan setup to the application's actual technology stack while keeping changes isolated until they are approved. It is intended for reducing false positives or improving scan speed and coverage.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/stackhawk/agent-skills/stackhawk-optimize
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/stackhawk/agent-skills

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 98 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,741 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00098 $0.01741
Opus 5 $0.00049 $0.00870
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00348
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00174

Measured 2d ago against content hash 925ada344cc4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

stackhawk-optimize scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

cursor/.cursor/rules/stackhawk-optimize.mdc · 115 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 115 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Optimize Skill

Turn a codebase into an optimal HawkScan configuration. The skill detects the real tech stack and app shape, expresses that as a trial scan policy (tech flags + plugins) plus local stackhawk.yml corrections, runs one trial scan so the user sees real results, and then promotes the setup or discards it with no residue.

Why a trial policy (not editing the app)

Org scan policies are stored as hosted assets and downloaded by the scanner at scan time when app.scanPolicy.name is set (see references/trial-lifecycle.md). Creating a trial policy and referencing it in stackhawk.yml therefore leaves the application's own policy, plugins, and tech flags untouched until the user promotes. This is the core safety property.

Preflight (run before anything else)

# Identify the driving skill for CLI usage telemetry (read by hawk/hawkop).
export _STACKHAWK_SKILL=optimize
  1. CLI versions / auth — reuse the hawkscan skill's preflight (hawk version, hawk config --help, hawk op auth). Additionally confirm the policy write commands exist: hawk op policy create --help must succeed. If it errors with "unrecognized subcommand", STOP and tell the user to upgrade hawk. Also confirm metrics support: hawk op scan metrics --help must succeed. If it errors with "unrecognized subcommand", the metrics/refine phase is skipped (pre-scan optimization still works); tell the user to upgrade hawk to enable refinement.
  2. App + env — resolve the target app and env. If the app is not onboarded, defer to the hawkscan skill's onboarding, then return here.
  3. Permissions / feature flag — the org needs ORG_POLICY_MANAGEMENT + WRITE_POLICY /DELETE_POLICY. If a policy create dry-run reports a permission/feature error, degrade to recommend-only: print the proposed policy JSON + yml diff and stop.

Workflow

Two modes. Setup configures scan policy + tech flags (no scan) and is what hawkscan onboarding invokes; it is also re-runnable anytime via /optimize. Refine runs a trial scan and tunes from per-path metrics; it runs only via /optimize or when a scan is slow.

Read the full file on GitHub · 115 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 115 lines · 98 tokens per session scan A 925ada344cc4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

stackhawk-optimize is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository stackhawk/agent-skills (15 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 98 tokens to every session and 1,741 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.