pattern-exhaustion

name	pattern-exhaustion
description	Systematic pattern exhaustion methodology. Load after finding any confirmed vulnerability to search for all instances of the same root cause pattern across the codebase.
metadata	{"subdomain":"analyst","when_to_use":"pattern exhaustion methodology root cause search same pattern instances codebase variant hunt"}

Pattern Exhaustion

When you find a vulnerability, you have found a PATTERN. The same developer who wrote one broken auth check likely wrote twenty. The same framework that misses one guard has a systemic design gap. One root cause → multiple CVEs.

Real-world examples:

• Parse Server: 4 advisories from guard bypass patterns (prototype chain, falsy-value guard, protected-field bypass, complexity validator)
• zrok: 3 advisories from access control (symlink traversal, broken ownership, reflected XSS in callback)
• AVideo: 3 advisories from deployment config (SSRF, exposed installer, memcached session leak)

The Exhaustion Loop

1. Classify the root cause

After confirming a vulnerability, classify its root cause pattern:

Root Cause	Search Pattern
Missing auth/authz check	grep -rn 'def handle_|router\.\(get|post|put|delete\)' | grep -v 'auth|permission|require|middleware'
Unvalidated path parameter	grep -rn 'req\.params|request\.args|ctx\.params' | grep -v 'sanitize|validate|path\.resolve|path\.normalize'
SQL string interpolation	grep -rn 'f"SELECT|f"INSERT|f"UPDATE|query(.*\+.*|query(.*\$\{' --include='*.py' --include='*.ts' --include='*.js'