sec-review-team

name

sec-review-team

description

Run a multi-agent security review TEAM over a codebase or recent diff. Picks a specialist roster based on detected stack signals (webapp / desktop / iac / llm-agent / container / backend / etc.) from a library of 13 specialists. Each specialist writes structured JSONL + prose findings in parallel; orchestrator consolidates into a single severity-ranked REPORT.md with deduped root issues. Distinct from the built-in `/security-review` (which is a single-pass branch review). Use when the user says "multi-agent security review", "security review team", "sec-review team", "audit this branch with a team", "pre-release hardening team pass", or similar. Review-only — no fixes. Validated on Opus 4.7 (see markdown/research/security-review-opus-4.7-validation.md).

Multi-Agent Security Review Team — Orchestration

Follow these steps. Review-only. Never apply fixes.

Step 0: Pre-run confirmation

The skill's largest user-facing safety gate. Never spawn specialists without showing this block (unless --yes / auto-approve is passed).

0.1 Parse arguments

• Target path — absolute path. If missing, ask: "What repo should I review? (absolute path)" Verify it exists and is readable.
• Scope — one of:
  • all — full tree
  • <subdir> — a subdirectory, e.g. src/api/
  • diff vs main (or diff vs <branch>) — only files changed on current branch vs target branch If missing, ask: "What scope? Full tree, a subdirectory, or a diff?"
• Flags: --yes / -y skips confirmation entirely. Default is to confirm.

0.2 Enumerate scope

Use git-aware commands (fall back to find if not a git repo):

# File count + line count (scoped)
cd "<TARGET>"
if [[ "<SCOPE>" == "all" ]]; then
  FILE_COUNT=$(git ls-files | wc -l)
  LINE_COUNT=$(git ls-files | xargs wc -l 2>/dev/null | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}')
elif [[ "<SCOPE>" == diff* ]]; then
  BASE="${SCOPE#diff vs }"; BASE="${BASE:-main}"
  FILES=$(git diff --name-only "$BASE"...HEAD)
  FILE_COUNT=$(echo "$FILES" | wc -l)
  LINE_COUNT=$(echo "$FILES" | xargs wc -l 2>/dev/null | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}')
else
  FILE_COUNT=$(git ls-files "<SCOPE>" | wc -l)
  LINE_COUNT=$(git ls-files "<SCOPE>" | xargs wc -l 2>/dev/null | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}')
fi

Cap LINE_COUNT at 500k (anything larger: warn and suggest scope narrowing).

0.3 Detect stack signals

Read the highest-signal manifests first (cheapest): README.md top 50 lines, package.json, Cargo.toml, pyproject.toml, go.mod, Gemfile, tauri.conf.json, Dockerfile, .github/workflows/ (existence only), requirements.txt. Two or three file-reads is enough.

Apply each rule in stack-signals.md against what you observe. Collect matching signals (multiple can match). Example: a Tauri note app emits desktop + desktop-with-webview.

0.4 Pick default roster

Per stack-signals.md: union the specialist sets across all matching stack signals. Always include the baseline 4 (secrets-crypto-auditor, dependency-supplychain-auditor, silent-failure-hunter, data-exposure-auditor).

0.5 Detect scanner availability

For each scanner in Step 2.5's pre-pass list, run command -v <name>. Flag available vs missing. Missing scanners don't block — they just reduce pre-pass coverage; dependent specialists will work in manual mode.

0.6 Estimate runtime + tokens + cost

Use these baselines (from CBP-060 reference run against recall on Opus 4.7):

• Input tokens per specialist: ~min(40k, 30 + 0.02 × LINE_COUNT) k tokens — small repos float near 30k overhead; large repos grow linearly with source lines but the agent self-caps reads.
• Output tokens per specialist: ~5–10k regardless of repo size (findings + prose).
• Total tokens: N_specialists × (input + output).
• Runtime: longest-path specialist ≈ 3 min baseline; add 0.6 sec / file read. Dependency auditor is typically slowest (~20–30 min on a repo with a 700-package node_modules). Report estimate as a range: longest × 1.1 to longest × 1.5.
• Cost (on Opus 4.7 pricing — $5/MTok input, $25/MTok output, April 2026): (input_tokens × 5 + output_tokens × 25) / 1_000_000. Print $X.XX.

Use claude-opus-4-7[1m] pricing if the orchestrator is running on the 1M-context variant; otherwise standard Opus 4.7. Print the pricing assumption.

0.7 Render confirmation block

╭─ sec-review-team ──────────────────────────────────────────╮
│                                                            │
│  Target:     <absolute path>                               │
│  Scope:      <scope>                                       │
│              <N> files, <N> lines                          │
│                                                            │
│  Stack:      <detected signals, comma-separated>           │
│  Model:      <current model ID>                            │
│                                                            │
│  Specialists (<N> in roster):                              │
│    ✓ secrets-crypto-auditor                                │
│    ✓ dependency-supplychain-auditor                        │
│    ✓ silent-failure-hunter                                 │
│    ✓ data-exposure-auditor                                 │
│    ✓ <stack-specific additions>                            │
│                                                            │
│  Pre-pass scanners:                                        │
│    ✓ gitleaks          (found on PATH)                     │
│    ✗ trufflehog        (missing — skip)                    │
│    ✓ semgrep                                               │
│    ✓ npm audit                                             │
│    ✗ cargo audit       (missing — skip)                    │
│                                                            │
│  Estimated:                                                │
│    Tokens:    ~<N>k input / ~<N>k output                   │
│    Runtime:   <N>–<N> min (wall-clock)                     │
│    Cost:      ~$<N.NN> (<model pricing tier>)              │
│                                                            │
│  Output:      <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/          │
│                                                            │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Proceed? [y / narrow / add-specialist / drop-specialist / abort]

0.8 Handle response

• y / yes / (--yes flag) → continue to Step 1.
• narrow → prompt: "Narrow to which subdirectory or diff?" — re-run 0.2–0.7 with the new scope.
• add-specialist <name> → append the named specialist if present in specialists/, reject if unknown, re-render 0.7.
• drop-specialist <name> → remove from roster, warn if dropping a baseline specialist ("secrets-crypto is in the baseline. Drop anyway?"), re-render 0.7.
• abort / n / no / empty response after 60 s (if interactive) → exit cleanly. Do NOT create .planning/security-review/. Do NOT spawn any agent.

0.9 Run-metadata capture

After confirmation, before Step 1, write <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/run-metadata.json:

{
  "run_id": "<ISO timestamp>",
  "target": "<absolute path>",
  "scope": "<scope>",
  "stack_signals": ["..."],
  "roster": ["..."],
  "scanners_available": ["..."],
  "scanners_missing": ["..."],
  "model": "<model ID>",
  "estimated_tokens_input": <N>,
  "estimated_tokens_output": <N>,
  "estimated_cost_usd": <N.NN>,
  "confirmed_at": "<ISO timestamp>"
}

This is consumed later by the consolidation step (fills in REPORT.md header), by re-run comparison (CBP-066), and by telemetry if enabled.

Step 1: Final roster

Load only the specialist brief files from specialists/ that match the confirmed roster. Do not load briefs for specialists not in the roster.

Step 2: Prepare findings directory

Create <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/ if absent.

Pollution check: run git check-ignore <TARGET>/.planning/ (or grep .gitignore). If .planning/ is NOT ignored, warn the user:

"⚠ .planning/ is not in the target's .gitignore. Findings land inside the repo. Options: (a) add to .gitignore, (b) write to /tmp/sec-review-/ instead, (c) proceed."

Respect choice. Default (no response) is (c).

Step 2.5: Scanner pre-pass

Deterministic scanners run before the LLM specialists. This is the biggest accuracy-per-token lever in the skill — specialists spend tokens on signal tools can't catch (architectural, multi-step, context-dependent), not re-deriving secret-detection regexes.

2.5.1 Scanner inventory

Scanner	Detects	Command	Feeds specialist
gitleaks	secrets at rest	gitleaks detect --source <TARGET> --report-format json --report-path -	secrets-crypto-auditor
trufflehog	secrets (git history + fs)	trufflehog filesystem <TARGET> --json	secrets-crypto-auditor
semgrep	pattern-based SAST	semgrep scan --config auto --json --output -	multi: input-validation, data-exposure, silent-failure (by rule category)
npm audit	npm CVEs	cd <TARGET> && npm audit --json	dependency-supplychain-auditor
cargo audit	crate CVEs	cd <TARGET> && cargo audit --json	dependency-supplychain-auditor
pip-audit	Python CVEs	pip-audit -r <TARGET>/requirements.txt -f json	dependency-supplychain-auditor
osv-scanner	multi-ecosystem CVEs	osv-scanner -r <TARGET> --format json	dependency-supplychain-auditor
bandit	Python SAST	bandit -r <TARGET> -f json	input-validation-auditor (Python targets)
hadolint	Dockerfile lint	hadolint <file> -f json	container-runtime-auditor
trivy image	base image CVEs	trivy image --format json <image>	container-runtime-auditor
actionlint	GHA syntax + security	actionlint -format '{{json .}}'	ci-cd-security-auditor
tfsec	Terraform security	tfsec <TARGET> --format json	iac-auditor
checkov	IaC security	checkov -d <TARGET> --output json	iac-auditor
retire.js	known-vulnerable JS libs	retire --path <TARGET> --outputformat json	frontend-security-auditor

Full mapping: see docs/scanner-coverage.md.

2.5.2 Detection + invocation

For each scanner in the inventory:

if command -v <scanner> >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  run the scanner, capture stdout
  parse JSON output
  normalize to finding.schema.json format (see 2.5.3)
  append to <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/scanner-prepass.jsonl
else
  log "scanner <name> not available — skipping"
fi

Run scanners in parallel where safe (no shared-state conflicts). Wall-clock ceiling per scanner: 120 s (kill if exceeded; log partial results).

2.5.3 Normalization

Every scanner emits different JSON. Normalize each finding to finding.schema.json with:

• id — scanner-<name>-<index> (e.g. scanner-gitleaks-001)
• specialist — the specialist this finding is routed to (see inventory above). Even scanner findings get routed; specialists triage them.
• source — "scanner-<name>" (so provenance is visible)
• severity — mapped from scanner's severity (HIGH → high, MEDIUM → medium, etc.)
• confidence — scanners get certain for deterministic rule hits, likely for heuristic rules
• title, root_issue — from scanner output, slug-normalized
• file, line_range, evidence — from scanner output
• exploit, fix — scanners often omit these; leave "" and let the specialist agent fill during triage

Save to <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/scanner-prepass.jsonl.

2.5.4 Feed specialists

When spawning each specialist in Step 3, include a "Pre-pass context" section in the brief:

Pre-pass scanner findings relevant to your specialist (from `<TARGET>/.planning/security-review/scanner-prepass.jsonl`):

  [N findings from gitleaks]
  [M findings from semgrep for your category]

Triage rules:
  1. For each scanner-sourced finding, decide: true-positive / false-positive / needs-investigation.
     Emit a finding entry in your JSONL with `source: "scanner-<name>-confirmed"` (for true-positive) or
     `source: "scanner-<name>-false-positive"` (for false-positive triaged out).
  2. After triage, find what the scanner missed via architectural / cross-file analysis — these go in your
     JSONL with `source: "specialist"` as usual.

Specialists are not obligated to re-derive secret regexes. Their job is triage + judgment.

2.5.5 REPORT.md provenance

The consolidation step (Step 4) renders REPORT.md with a "Source" column for each finding so the reader sees which scanner (if any) caught it and whether a specialist confirmed or overturned the triage. Scanner-only confirmations (no specialist review) are flagged with ⚠ unreviewed by specialist — this happens when a specialist errored before triaging the scanner pre-pass.

2.5.6 Scanner unavailability

If zero scanners are available in the environment, the run continues — specialists do the full job themselves, which is the CBP-060 baseline mode. Log a tooling caveat in REPORT.md so the reader knows coverage is LLM-only.

Step 3: Spawn specialists in parallel

Issue one Agent tool call per specialist in a single assistant message — this is what makes them run concurrently.

For each specialist:

• Read its brief file (specialists/<name>.md).
• Substitute <TARGET>, <SCOPE>, <STACK CONTEXT>, <THREAT_MODEL>.
• Pass allowed-tools per the specialist's ## Allowed tools section (hard read-only; Write scoped to the four output-file paths only).
• Use preferred_subagent_type from frontmatter; fall back to fallback_subagent_type if unregistered.

Print to the user before the parallel batch returns:

Spawning <N> specialists in parallel against <TARGET> (scope: <SCOPE>).

Each specialist writes to <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/<name>.{md, findings.jsonl, coverage.jsonl, status.json}.

Live progress (run in a separate terminal):
  watch -n 5 'jq -s "sort_by(.agent) | map({agent, status, files_read, findings_written})" <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/*.status.json'

Or:
  tail -f <TARGET>/.planning/security-review/*.status.json

Spawning now. Interim status lines will appear as each specialist returns.

3.1 Heartbeat contract (per specialist)

Every specialist brief instructs the agent to write <name>.status.json at spawn time and to update it as progress happens. Format:

{
  "agent": "<specialist-name>",
  "status": "starting | scanning | writing-findings | completed | errored",
  "started_at": "<ISO>",
  "finished_at": "<ISO|null>",
  "files_read": <int>,
  "findings_written": <int>,
  "current_file": "<path|null>",
  "severity_counts": { "critical": 0, "high": 0, "medium": 0, "low": 0 },
  "error": "<message|null>"
}

• On spawn: write with status: "starting", started_at, counters at 0.
• Every ~5 file reads: update files_read, current_file, set status: "scanning".
• On each finding: increment findings_written, update severity_counts.
• On completion: set status: "completed", finished_at, final counts.
• On error: set status: "errored", finished_at, populate error.

The agent must flush .status.json to disk before returning from its Agent tool call, so the orchestrator sees the final state once the subagent completes.

3.2 Interim reports (orchestrator-side)

Batched Agent calls in a single message run concurrently, but the orchestrator receives their results serialized — one completion at a time. As each specialist returns:

1. Read the specialist's status.json file to confirm final state.
2. Print one line to the user:

✓ auth-authz-auditor       done    (0C / 2H / 2M / 1L)   [4m 22s]   12 files read
✓ input-validation-auditor done    (0C / 0H / 0M / 3L)   [3m 15s]    8 files read
✗ dependency-supplychain-auditor errored after 18m — node_modules walk timed out. Partial findings preserved.
✓ silent-failure-hunter    done    (0C / 2H / 3M / 3L)   [5m 03s]   14 files read
...

3. Errored specialists don't block the run. Keep processing completions from the remaining specialists. In Step 4 (consolidate), errored specialists are flagged in REPORT.md with their last-known status.json state.

4. After the last specialist returns, print:

All <N> specialists completed (<X> done, <Y> errored). Consolidating...

3.3 Output files per specialist

Each specialist writes four files:

• <name>.md — prose findings (human-readable)
• <name>.findings.jsonl — per schema/finding.schema.json
• <name>.coverage.jsonl — per schema/coverage.schema.json
• <name>.status.json — heartbeat / final state

Step 4: Consolidate

Read all *.findings.jsonl and *.coverage.jsonl. Apply docs/consolidation-template.md:

1. Group findings by root_issue (dedupe).
2. For each group: max(severity), max(confidence), distinct(specialist) → raised_by.
3. Split actionable (certain|likely) from worth-investigating (possible|unverified).
4. Build coverage matrix (category × specialist) from coverage.jsonl.
5. Render REPORT.md from template.

If any specialist failed schema validation on its JSONL, fall back to prose parse for that specialist and log a warning in REPORT.md.

As each specialist returns, print an interim-status line: ✓ <name> done (<counts>) [<runtime>] or ✗ <name> errored: <msg>. Don't block on errored specialists.

Step 5: Deliver

Tell the user:

• Path to REPORT.md and the four per-specialist files each
• Headline severity counts (deduped)
• Top 2–3 fixes by impact
• Tooling caveats (scanners unavailable, fallbacks taken, specialists errored)
• Coverage completeness score

Do NOT apply fixes. Fix workflow → companion skill /sec-review-fixes (CBP-070).

---

Related

• Specialist library: specialists/ (13 briefs)
• Stack signals: stack-signals.md
• Schemas: schema/finding.schema.json, schema/coverage.schema.json
• Consolidation template: docs/consolidation-template.md
• Design tradeoffs: docs/tradeoffs.md
• Canonical prompt source: markdown/design/Team_of_security_agents.md
• Embedded playbook section: fsad-playbook.html → #practices/security-review
• Opus 4.7 validation: markdown/research/security-review-opus-4.7-validation.md
• Improvement recommendations: markdown/research/sec-review-recommendations.md