| name | competition-cloud-metadata-path |
| description | Internal downstream skill for ctf-sandbox-orchestrator. CTF-sandbox workflow for cloud metadata services, instance identity, workload identity, link-local credential paths, role assumption, and metadata-to-privilege trust edges. Use when the user asks to inspect metadata-service access, instance credentials, pod or workload identity, link-local token paths, SSRF-to-metadata escalation, or explain how metadata-derived credentials turn into accepted cloud or control-plane privilege. Use only after `$ctf-sandbox-orchestrator` has already established sandbox assumptions and routed here. |
Competition Cloud Metadata Path
Use this skill only as a downstream specialization after $ctf-sandbox-orchestrator is already active and has established sandbox assumptions, node ownership, and evidence priorities. If that has not happened yet, return to $ctf-sandbox-orchestrator first.
Use this skill when the decisive edge is not just reaching metadata, but proving how metadata-derived identity becomes accepted privilege.
Reply in Simplified Chinese unless the user explicitly requests English.
Quick Start
- Identify which metadata surface is active: instance metadata, workload identity, node identity, task role, or platform-specific token endpoint.
- Record the exact reachability path: local process, pod, container, proxy, SSRF surface, or host route.
- Separate metadata reachability from credential issuance and from downstream privilege acceptance.
- Keep token format, role identity, scope, and accepting API in compact evidence blocks.
- Reproduce the smallest metadata-to-accepted-privilege path that proves the challenge edge.
Workflow
1. Map Metadata Reachability
- Record the metadata endpoint, required headers, hop limits, session tokens, workload selectors, or path prefixes.
- Note whether access comes from direct local calls, pod networking, SSRF, sidecar, or host-level routing.
- Keep the reaching surface and the metadata endpoint in one chain.
2. Prove Credential Or Identity Issuance
- Show how the metadata response becomes a token, temporary credential, signed identity doc, or platform-specific workload identity.
- Record expiration, role name, subject, audience, issuer, or cloud account mapping that matters downstream.
- Distinguish raw metadata from usable credential material.
3. Reduce To The Decisive Trust Path
- Compress the result to the smallest sequence: reaching surface -> metadata call -> credential issued -> accepted cloud or cluster action.
- State clearly whether the weakness lives in reachability, metadata config, role trust, downstream policy, or workload binding.
- If the challenge narrows to RBAC or cluster mutation after credential issuance, switch back to the tighter control-plane skill.
Read This Reference
- Load
references/cloud-metadata-path.md for the reachability checklist, token checklist, and evidence packaging.
- If the hard part is first proving a server-side fetch primitive, SSRF reachability, or internal endpoint traversal before metadata itself, prefer
$competition-ssrf-metadata-pivot.
What To Preserve
- Metadata endpoints, required headers, reachability path, issued tokens or creds, and accepted APIs
- Role names, audiences, issuers, account bindings, and privilege-bearing actions
- The smallest replayable metadata-to-privilege chain
