research

research is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Encod3d-Sec/TORCH. It costs 101 tokens per session (1,868 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A persistent research workflow for finding and proving a previously unknown security vulnerability, potentially leading to a new CVE, the identifier used for publicly catalogued software flaws.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate a binary, library, web application, API, firmware, protocol, or source repository through reverse engineering, fuzzing, and code auditing.
Why use it?
It turns investigation into a resumable loop of hypotheses, testing, findings, and changed approaches when an idea fails.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/encod3d-sec/torch/research
Any agent
npx skills add Encod3d-Sec/TORCH --skill research
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Encod3d-Sec/TORCH

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for research

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/encod3d-sec/torch/research.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/encod3d-sec/torch/research)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/encod3d-sec/torch/research"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/encod3d-sec/torch/research.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 101 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,868 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 $0.00101 $0.01868
Opus 5 $0.00051 $0.00934
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00374
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00187

Measured 5d ago against content hash 3d10a22e3a9c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

research 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 5d 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.

skills/research/SKILL.md · 82 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 82 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Research: CVE Discovery Loop

Find and prove one novel vulnerability in a target (binary, library, web app/API, firmware, protocol, or source repo). The loop is persistent, resumable, and anti-loop: findings deepen it, dead-ends pivot it, and every step is driven by the knowledge base.

This skill is the research analog of the engagement framework: raw/research/<project>/ is to research what targets/<eng>/ is to an engagement.


0. Setup (once per target)

  1. Identify target type + version + source. Get the code/binary: repos via WSL clone (wsl -d kali-linux -u kali -- git clone <url> /home/kali/<name>), releases by download.
  2. Scaffold: bash setup/new-research.sh <project_name> -> raw/research/<project>/{target,surface,findings,deadends,loop}.md + poc/ (also sets it active in raw/research/active.md, so SessionStart surfaces its status).
  3. Build/run it where possible - a runnable target unlocks dynamic testing + fuzzing.
  4. Fill target.md: what it is, version, language, build/run commands, trust boundaries.

1. State-first (EVERY iteration, MANDATORY)

Read raw/research/<project>/{loop.md, deadends.md, findings.md} before acting. Never re-run a logged dead-end without new input. Resume from the last iteration. This is the anti-loop rule - the same discipline engagements use. Run python3 scripts/research_status.py for the current phase + ranked next move (also auto-surfaced at SessionStart from raw/research/active.md).

2. Attack-surface map (surface.md)

qmd_query the target's tech/language/framework first, then map by type:

Target type First moves Knowledge base
binary / executable checksec, strings, RE entry + parsers, identify input handling [[reverse-engineering]] [[ghidra]] [[radare2]] [[binary-exploitation]] [[memory-safety-bugs]] [[fuzzing]] [[aflplusplus]] [[gdb-gef]]
C/C++ library grep dangerous APIs, build a fuzz harness, map public API [[memory-safety-bugs]] [[fuzzing]] [[libfuzzer]] [[aflplusplus]] [[static-code-analysis]] [[semgrep]] [[codeql]]
web app / API map routes, auth, sinks; diff vs known framework CVEs web hunt skills (sqli/idor/auth/injection/deser/ssrf/upload) + [[source-audit-checklist]] [[static-code-analysis]]
firmware binwalk -Me, extract rootfs, then treat components as binary/web [[firmware-hardware]] [[binwalk]]
protocol / network service RE the parser/state machine, fuzz the wire format [[protocol-attacks]] [[fuzzing]] [[aflplusplus]] [[reverse-engineering]] [[ghidra]]
source repo (any lang) audit + dependency CVE review + secret/history scan [[source-audit-checklist]] [[static-code-analysis]] [[semgrep]] [[codeql]] [[trivy]] [[secret-hunting]] [[git-exposure]] + the matching vuln-class page

Read the full file on GitHub · 82 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. 5d ago First seen · 82 lines · 101 tokens per session scan A 3d10a22e3a9c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

research is a skill published in the GitHub repository Encod3d-Sec/TORCH (284 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 101 tokens to every session and 1,868 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.

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