constant-time-testing

constant-time-testing is a skill for Claude Code from marduk191/qwen3_mcp. It costs 25 tokens per session (4,752 once invoked), scanned B, a copy of constant-time-testing, MIT.

A testing method for finding timing side channels in cryptographic code. A timing side channel is a secret-related difference in how long code takes to run.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when auditing cryptographic implementations for execution-time differences linked to secret data.
Why use it?
It helps reveal implementation leaks that can expose private keys or other secrets even when the cryptographic algorithm is sound.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the testing-handbook-skills plugin — 15 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it when auditing cryptographic implementations for execution-time differences linked to secret data.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing
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.

Any agent
npx skills add marduk191/qwen3_mcp --skill constant-time-testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/marduk191/qwen3_mcp

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install testing-handbook-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 15 skills.

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 constant-time-testing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for constant-time-testing

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/marduk191/qwen3_mcp/constant-time-testing.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 25 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,752 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 97% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 5.1 $0.00025 $0.04752
Opus 5 $0.00013 $0.02376
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00950
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00475

Measured 10d ago against content hash ddf883f5659a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

constant-time-testing scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 10d 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.

Harvests environment variablesmediumData exfiltration

Enumerating or grepping the environment for keys collects credentials unrelated to what the mod says it does.

Timing attacks exploit variations in execution time to extract secret information from cryptographic implementations. Unlike cryptanalysis that targets theoretical weaknesses, timing attacks leverage implementation flaws

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Origin

This is a copy

97% identical to constant-time-testing — 5 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/testing-handbook-skills/skills/constant-time-testing/SKILL.md · 508 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 508 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Constant-Time Testing

Timing attacks exploit variations in execution time to extract secret information from cryptographic implementations. Unlike cryptanalysis that targets theoretical weaknesses, timing attacks leverage implementation flaws - and they can affect any cryptographic code.

Background

Timing attacks were introduced by Kocher in 1996. Since then, researchers have demonstrated practical attacks on RSA (Schindler), OpenSSL (Brumley and Boneh), AES implementations, and even post-quantum algorithms like Kyber.

Key Concepts

Concept Description
Constant-time Code path and memory accesses independent of secret data
Timing leakage Observable execution time differences correlated with secrets
Side channel Information extracted from implementation rather than algorithm
Microarchitecture CPU-level timing differences (cache, division, shifts)

Why This Matters

Timing vulnerabilities can:

  • Expose private keys - Extract secret exponents in RSA/ECDH
  • Enable remote attacks - Network-observable timing differences
  • Bypass cryptographic security - Undermine theoretical guarantees
  • Persist silently - Often undetected without specialized analysis

Two prerequisites enable exploitation:

  1. Access to oracle - Sufficient queries to the vulnerable implementation
  2. Timing dependency - Correlation between execution time and secret data

Common Constant-Time Violation Patterns

Four patterns account for most timing vulnerabilities:

// 1. Conditional jumps - most severe timing differences
if(secret == 1) { ... }
while(secret > 0) { ... }

// 2. Array access - cache-timing attacks
lookup_table[secret];

// 3. Integer division (processor dependent)
data = secret / m;

// 4. Shift operation (processor dependent)
data = a << secret;

Read the full file on GitHub · 508 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. 10d ago First seen · 508 lines · 25 tokens per session scan B ddf883f5659a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

constant-time-testing is a skill published in the GitHub repository marduk191/qwen3_mcp (13 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 25 tokens to every session and 4,752 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (harvests environment variables). It is 97% identical to constant-time-testing, differing in 5 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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