| name | engagement-scoping |
| description | Drive the pre-engagement scoping conversation and produce the scope statement, Rules of Engagement, authorisation letter, and communications plan. Use when the user mentions kickoff, scoping a pentest, drafting ROE, rules of engagement, scope statement, authorisation letter, get-out-of-jail letter, communications plan, blackout window, escalation matrix, ROE drift, third-party hosting carve-out, social-engineering allowance, time-window restrictions, or evidence-handling rules. |
Engagement Scoping
Pre-engagement scoping driver — produce the four core engagement documents from a structured conversation.
Library root
$PENTEST_LIBRARY — caminho absoluto deste repositório clonado (definido pelo instalador; veja INSTALL.md).
Walk 00-engagement/01-pre-engagement.md end-to-end. The four documents to produce:
templates/scope-statement-template.md
templates/roe-template.md
templates/authorization-letter-template.md
templates/communications-plan-template.md
How to operate
- Read
00-engagement/01-pre-engagement.md to surface every gate the methodology requires.
- Drive a structured conversation, group by group. Don't ask one question at a time — batch by topic:
- Scope group: assets (FQDN, IP/CIDR, app builds, cloud accounts, AD domains, mobile bundles), in-scope vs out-of-scope, third-party hosting carve-outs, data-classification limits.
- Engagement type group: assessment type (web/API, mobile, infra, AD, cloud, wireless, physical, red team, IoT/OT, AI/LLM), test perspective (anon, low-priv, privileged, cross-tenant), authentication artefacts.
- Time group: start/end window, daily blackout windows, change-freeze overlap, holiday calendar.
- Allowance group: social engineering yes/no, denial-of-service yes/no, destructive payloads yes/no, credential stuffing/spraying yes/no, exploit-code execution yes/no.
- People group: white team, trusted agents, escalation matrix, SOC notification level (transparent / blue-team-aware / dark).
- Communications group: primary + backup channels, cadence, critical-finding threshold, kill-switch procedure.
- Evidence group: PII handling, data-residency, evidence-storage location, retention period, chain-of-custody requirements.
- Legal group: authorisation signer, indemnification, liability cap, jurisdiction, regulatory considerations (PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, SOX, FERPA, NIS2, DORA).
- After collecting answers, populate the four templates in order: scope → ROE → authorisation letter → comms plan. Return them as filled Markdown.
- Flag missing or ambiguous answers BEFORE producing documents — ROE drift is the most common cause of engagement disputes.
- Special rules:
- Physical / red-team engagements: authorisation letter MUST be signed by an officer with apparent authority and travel with every tester at all times.
- OT / ICS engagements: ROE must explicitly enumerate permitted operations per device class — default to passive observation.
- Production data: capture metadata only unless ROE explicitly permits sample extraction.
- Cloud engagements: confirm provider acceptable-use rules (AWS self-attest, Azure RoE, GCP customer-perspective).
When NOT to use
- Active testing in progress → use the type-specific
pentest-* skill.
- Finding write-up →
pentest-finding-writer.
- Retest →
engagement-retest.
Pre-conditions
- Master Services Agreement (or equivalent contract) signed.
- Client point-of-contact identified.
Output
Four Markdown documents, ready for review:
- Scope Statement (in-scope assets, perspectives, exclusions).
- Rules of Engagement (allowances, time windows, communications, escalation, kill switch, evidence handling).
- Authorisation Letter (signed by authorised officer, contact numbers, valid date range).
- Communications Plan (channels, cadence, critical-finding threshold, escalation matrix).
References inside the library
00-engagement/01-pre-engagement.md
templates/scope-statement-template.md, templates/roe-template.md, templates/authorization-letter-template.md, templates/communications-plan-template.md
frameworks/ptes.md, frameworks/nist-sp-800-115.md