Variant analysis

Finds the other instances of a bug you already found — one root cause usually has several manifestations.

Installation

$ npx skills add trailofbits/skills

The CLI's unit is the repository, so this installs everything in trailofbits/skills, not variant-analysis alone. It writes into whichever agent directories it finds — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Zed.

Summary

Finds the other instances of a bug you already found — one root cause usually has several manifestations.

  • Reach for it when the moment a vulnerability is confirmed. Fixing only the reported instance is the most common incomplete fix there is.
  • Sits in Secure — threat modelling, scanning, supply chain, and finding the other five copies of the bug you just found.
  • Stack-agnostic — nothing in it assumes a particular language or framework.
  • Published by Trail of Bits. Well regarded, but not the vendor of the thing it covers.
  • Installing pulls the whole trailofbits/skills repository: this catalogue lists 12 other entries from it, and the repo may hold more.

Where it sits in delivery

SecureThreat modelling, scanning, supply chain, and finding the other five copies of the bug you just found.Everything in Secure

The agent itself

The full text lives with its publisher and changes when they change it. Read it there rather than here — a mirrored copy of somebody else's procedure goes stale silently, and this page would have no way of telling you.

Related

More in Secure