Probe a target for accidentally-public admin / debug / introspection
endpoints — Spring Boot Actuator, Apache server-status, Prometheus
metrics, GraphQL playground, Swagger UI, phpMyAdmin, JMX-over-HTTP
(Jolokia), Elasticsearch _cat, Kibana / Grafana / Eureka / Consul
panels.
Use when: post-deploy verification, security audit before SOC2,
inheriting a system you didn't build, or a bug bounty hints at an
exposed introspection panel.
Threshold: any of the canonical 40+ admin/debug paths returns 200,
302 to a login, or framework-specific JSON shape (e.g., Actuator
returning a _links object, server-status HTML body containing
the Apache Server Status title).
Trigger with: "check debug endpoints", "actuator exposure", "admin
panel scan", "graphql playground check".
Probe a target for accidentally-public admin / debug / introspection
endpoints — Spring Boot Actuator, Apache server-status, Prometheus
metrics, GraphQL playground, Swagger UI, phpMyAdmin, JMX-over-HTTP
(Jolokia), Elasticsearch _cat, Kibana / Grafana / Eureka / Consul
panels.
Use when: post-deploy verification, security audit before SOC2,
inheriting a system you didn't build, or a bug bounty hints at an
exposed introspection panel.
Threshold: any of the canonical 40+ admin/debug paths returns 200,
302 to a login, or framework-specific JSON shape (e.g., Actuator
returning a _links object, server-status HTML body containing
the Apache Server Status title).
Trigger with: "check debug endpoints", "actuator exposure", "admin
panel scan", "graphql playground check".
Modern web stacks ship rich introspection by default. Spring Boot
Actuator exposes /actuator/env (every environment variable),
/actuator/heapdump (a live heap snapshot that contains credentials),
/actuator/jolokia (JMX bean invocation = pre-auth RCE in some
configurations). Apache mod_status exposes /server-status with
internal IPs, request counts, and the URL of every active request.
Prometheus /metrics exposes operational telemetry that often
includes connection-string-bearing labels by accident. phpMyAdmin
exposes the entire database if unauthenticated.
These are not bugs in the frameworks. They're features that ship
enabled-by-default for development convenience and stay enabled in
production because nobody disabled them at install time. The probe
set covers the canonical 40+ paths and grades each by the response
fingerprint specific to that framework.
When the skill produces findings
Finding
Severity
Threshold
Affected control
Spring Boot Actuator /env exposed
CRITICAL
200 + body has "propertySources"
OWASP A05:2021
Spring Boot Actuator /heapdump exposed
CRITICAL
200 + Content-Type: application/octet-stream + multi-MB body
CWE-200
Spring Boot Actuator /jolokia exposed
CRITICAL
200 + body has "agent":"jolokia"
CWE-749
phpMyAdmin reachable
CRITICAL
200 + HTML body contains "phpMyAdmin" + login form
OWASP A07:2021
Prometheus /metrics exposed
HIGH
200 + body has # HELP or # TYPE lines
CWE-200
Apache mod_status exposed
HIGH
200 + body contains "Apache Server Status"
CWE-200
Spring Boot Actuator /actuator index
HIGH
200 + body has "_links" JSON
OWASP A05:2021
Generic /admin returning 200 (not 401/403)
HIGH
200 + HTML body with admin-shaped UI
CWE-285
Elasticsearch _cat exposed
HIGH
200 + body matches health\s+status\s+index
CWE-200
GraphQL Playground on prod
MEDIUM
200 + body contains "GraphQLPlayground"
CWE-200
Swagger UI on prod
MEDIUM
200 + body contains "swagger-ui"
CWE-200
Spring Boot Actuator /health exposed
MEDIUM
200 + body has "status":"UP"
CWE-200
phpinfo page on prod
MEDIUM
200 + body has PHP Version heading
CWE-200
/robots.txt discloses admin paths
LOW
200 + Disallow: lines mentioning /admin
CWE-200
Prerequisites
Python 3.9+ with requests
Authorization for non-local targets
Instructions
Step 1 — Confirm Authorization
"Do you have authorization to perform admin / debug endpoint
discovery on this target? I need confirmation before proceeding."
Usage: probe_debug.py URL [OPTIONS]
Options:
--authorized Attest authorization (required for non-local)
--output FILE Write findings to FILE
--format FMT json | jsonl | markdown (default: markdown)
--min-severity SEV (default: info)
--timeout SECS Per-probe timeout (default: 10)
--paths-file FILE Override the default probe set with a custom list
--include-redirects Treat 302/303 to /login as findings (debug panel
exists but auth gates it — still worth noting)
The scanner sends a GET for each path. For 200 responses, it inspects
the body for the framework-specific fingerprint to confirm a true
positive (not the app's SPA index page). For 302 responses to common
login paths, the panel exists but auth is in front — flagged only
with --include-redirects.
Step 3 — Interpret findings
CRITICAL = direct compromise vector (env vars / heapdump / Jolokia /
phpMyAdmin). Ship same-hour fix: take the endpoint behind authn or
disable it. Audit for prior exploitation.
HIGH = information disclosure substantial enough to drive subsequent
attacks (server-status reveals request URLs including session tokens
in query strings; /metrics labels often contain connection strings;
/admin reachable means brute-force can start).
MEDIUM = posture hardening (health checks, swagger).
Step 4 — Cross-skill chaining
After this skill, suggest:
detecting-exposed-secrets-files (#6) — same deploy mistake. If
/server-status is reachable, .git/ often is too.
auditing-cors-policy (#3) — if a GraphQL or admin endpoint is
reachable AND has open CORS, the attack chain compounds.
Examples
Example 1 — Inheriting a system audit
User: "We just acquired example.io. Quick audit of admin surface."
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/detecting-debug-endpoints/scripts/probe_debug.py \
https://example.io --authorized --min-severity medium
Commonly surfaces forgotten /server-status on Apache hosts,
/actuator/* left enabled from Spring Boot defaults, leftover
/phpmyadmin from initial install.
Example 2 — Spring Boot Actuator paranoia sweep
User: "We use Spring Boot heavily. Show me everywhere Actuator is
reachable."
for ENDPOINT in $(cat spring-services.txt); do
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/detecting-debug-endpoints/scripts/probe_debug.py \
"$ENDPOINT" --authorized --format jsonl
done | jq 'select(.title | contains("Actuator"))'
Example 3 — CI gate against accidental re-enablement
Exit 1 fails the deploy if any HIGH or CRITICAL endpoint exposure
appears. Catches the regression where a debug profile gets enabled
in a application-prod.yml by accident.
SPA catches every URL with 200 → use --check-only semantics
(default: fingerprint check filters out SPA matches).
WAF / CDN blocks the scanner → expected for some targets.
Coordinate with the target's security team for an allowlist; or
run the scanner from inside the target's network if you have
authorized internal access.
