Use at the START of any bug bounty hunting session, when switching targets, or when feeling lost about what to do next. Master orchestrator that combines the 5-phase non-linear hunting workflow with the critical thinking framework (developer psychology, anomaly detection, What-If experiments). Routes to all other skills based on current hunting phase. Also use when asking "what should I do next" or "where am I in the process."
Use at the START of any bug bounty hunting session, when switching targets, or when feeling lost about what to do next. Master orchestrator that combines the 5-phase non-linear hunting workflow with the critical thinking framework (developer psychology, anomaly detection, What-If experiments). Routes to all other skills based on current hunting phase. Also use when asking "what should I do next" or "where am I in the process."
version
1.1.0
revision_date
"2026-07-25T00:00:00.000Z"
license
MIT
category
redteam
tags
["bug-bounty","methodology","recon","redteam"]
Bug Bounty Methodology: Workflow + Mindset
Master orchestrator for hunting sessions. Combines the 5-phase non-linear workflow with the critical thinking framework that separates top 1% hunters from the rest.
PART 0: MODE CONFIRMATION (Before Anything Else)
Confirm the engagement type before deciding what counts as a finding. The same target produces a different report shape depending on which mode applies. Getting this wrong is the single biggest waste of time in this workflow — answer it explicitly before Phase 0.
Hard rule: Before Phase 0 runs, write the engagement type as the first line in your hunt notes. If you can't answer it from the user's instruction, ASK once. Don't assume — the mistake costs both you and the triager.
Lesson from an authorized engagement: First-pass on this target produced 5 hygiene findings (SP2013 EoL, permissive CSP, stack traces) shipped in red-team format. The engagement was bug-bounty. Findings would have been N/A'd as "informational, no impact demonstrated." After the corrected pass with hygiene-as-context-not-finding, the same target yielded 11 impact-demonstrated bugs including 3 Critical.
PART 1: MINDSET (How to Think)
Core Principle
Hunting is not "find a bug" -- it is "prove an attack scenario." Think like an attacker with a specific goal, not a scanner looking for patterns.
Daily Discipline: Define, Select, Execute
Before touching any command:
Define: "Today I target [feature/domain] to achieve [CIA impact]"
Mode confusion — treating a bug-bounty engagement as a red-team exercise wastes time on hygiene findings that get N/A'd. Confirm the engagement type (PART 0) before any recon.
Non-unique markers — using test, marker, or javascript as test strings triggers false positives. Always use 8+ char random alphanumeric markers and verify against baseline.
Status-code-only bypass claims — 200 OK with byte-identical body is NOT a bypass. Always diff response bodies before claiming success.
Single-sample timing conclusions — one 2× outlier is network jitter, not signal. Minimum n=10 interleaved trials, 2σ threshold for timing-based claims.
Shell loops for >5 iterations — zsh array expansion can silently produce zero iterations. Use Python with try/except for any loop iterating a list, file, or computed range.
Linear phase assumption — the 5-phase flow is non-linear. New APIs discovered during Phase 3 require returning to Phase 2 mapping. WAF blocking in Phase 4 requires origin-IP recon from Phase 1.
20-minute rule violations — continuing past 20 minutes without progress on a single endpoint burns session time. Rotate: endpoint → subdomain → vuln class → target.
Ignoring the A→B signal — finding one bug means the same developer made more mistakes nearby. Always spend 20 minutes hunting siblings after a confirmed finding.
Report-first, validate-later — writing the report before confirming the bug still reproduces wastes hours on retracted findings. Always re-test minutes before submission.
Premature pushback — when the user says "find more," they are usually correct. Exhaust 3 additional hunt-* skill checklists before claiming coverage is complete.
45-minute sunk cost on dead candidates — if a finding won't reproduce on a second account after 4+ hours, document the retraction and move on. Don't sink more time into making it work.
PART 2: WORKFLOW (What to Do)
The 5-Phase Non-Linear Flow
+-------------------------------------------------+
| |
| +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ |
| | 1. RECON |---+| 2. MAP |---+| 3. FIND | |
| +----------+ +-----+----+ +-----+-----+ |
| ^ | | |
| | v v |
| | +----------+ +----------+ |
| +----------| 4. PROVE |---+| 5. REPORT| |
| +----------+ +----------+ |
| |
| Non-linear: stuck at any phase -> go back |
| New API found at phase 3 -> return to phase 2 |
| WAF blocks at phase 4 -> origin IP from phase 1 |
+-------------------------------------------------+
THIS IS NOT LINEAR. Move freely between phases. When stuck, return to a previous phase.
Phase 0: SESSION START (Every Time)
Before touching any command, answer these:
Define: "Today I target [feature/domain] to achieve [C/I/A/ATO/RCE]"
Goal: Prove maximum business impact. Turn Low into Critical.
Escalation decision:
What did you find?
+-- XSS
| +-- Can steal cookie/token? -> Session hijack -> ATO
| +-- Cookie is HttpOnly? -> Force email change via XHR -> ATO
| +-- Self-XSS only? -> Find CSRF to trigger it
+-- IDOR
| +-- Can read PII? -> Automate scraping, show scale
| +-- Can change password/email? -> Direct ATO
| +-- UUID only? -> Find UUID leak source, then retry
+-- SSRF
| +-- DNS only? -> DON'T REPORT. Try cloud metadata
| +-- Can reach [REDACTED_IP]? -> Extract keys -> RCE
| +-- Internal port scan? -> Find Redis/K8s -> RCE
+-- SQLi
| +-- Error-based? -> Extract data (passwords, tokens)
| +-- Can INTO OUTFILE? -> Web shell -> RCE
| +-- Blind? -> Boolean/Time extraction
+-- Open Redirect
| +-- OAuth flow? -> Token theft -> ATO
| +-- javascript: scheme? -> XSS
+-- Blocked by defense
| -> Bypass (WAF/CSP/proxy/sanitizer/2FA)
+-- Low-impact, can't escalate alone
-> Find connector gadget for chain
After proving impact, check:
Can attack work with 0-1 clicks? (minimize prerequisites)
Does it affect all users or specific role?
What's the business $ impact?
Phase 5: VALIDATE & REPORT
Goal: Get paid. Make triager's job easy.
Pre-report gate:
Run /validate (7-Question Gate)
+-- All 7 pass? -> Write report
+-- Any fail? -> KILL the finding. Don't waste time.
+-- Borderline? -> Run /triage for quick go/no-go
Multi-Tool Reproduction Bar (Critical / High only):
Before labeling a finding Critical or High, reproduce it via at least two independent tools (different stacks, different HTTP libraries). Cross-tool consistency rules out command-line artifact findings (e.g., a curl-only timing differential that disappears under Python requests was an artefact, not a bug).
Examples of independent reproductions:
curl + Burp send_http1_request (different TLS stacks, different header normalisation)
Python requests + raw socket via ssl.wrap_socket (one library normalises, one doesn't)
Burp Repeater + Python urllib (same wire result expected from both)
The reproduction commands MUST be paste-into-shell ready in the report — a triager copies them verbatim. If the curl version requires special flags or breaks on certain systems, include a Python alternative.
Lesson from an authorized engagement: All three Critical findings (Authentication.asmx brute-force, TE.CL smuggling, NTLM Type-2 disclosure) were each independently reproduced via curl + Python raw sockets + Burp command-lining. The cross-tool consistency was what convinced the triage write-up that the findings were not artefacts.
Report:
Run /report
+-- Platform-specific format (H1/Bugcrowd/Intigriti/Immunefi)
+-- Title: [Bug Class] in [Endpoint] allows [role] to [impact]
+-- Impact-first summary (sentence 1 = what attacker CAN do)
+-- Exact HTTP requests in Steps to Reproduce
+-- Under 600 words
+-- CVSS 3.1 score that MATCHES actual impact
After submission:
While waiting for triage: try to escalate further (A->B signal method)
If fix deployed: re-test for bypass (incomplete patch = new bug)
Record finding with /remember for hunt memory
PART 3: NAVIGATION & TIMING
Non-Linear Navigation Quick Reference
I'm stuck because...
Go to...
Can't find any subdomains
Phase 1: Try different recon sources, Google Dorks
Found subdomain but don't know what to test
Phase 2: Map the app, download JS, understand auth
Testing but nothing works
Phase 3: Switch vuln class (20-min rotation rule)
Found a bug but impact is low
Phase 4: Escalation paths or gadget chaining
WAF/CSP/403 blocking my payload
Bypass techniques, then return to current phase
Been stuck for 45 min on one param
STOP. Rabbit hole. Move to next endpoint.
New API endpoint discovered during testing
Return to Phase 2: map it before attacking
Found one bug
A->B signal: same dev made more mistakes. Hunt 20 min for siblings.
20-Minute Rotation Clock
Every 20 minutes ask yourself: "Am I making progress?"
Yes -> Continue
No -> Rotate to next: endpoint -> subdomain -> vuln class -> target
Been on same target 2+ weeks with no findings? -> Consider switching program
Pushback Protocol (When the User Says "Find More")
When the user disagrees with your stopping point — e.g., "I've found 10+ bugs, you should find the same," or "look harder," or "you're missing things":
Default assumption: they are correct. You stopped early.
Before pushing back with "I think we're done because X," do this:
Re-read 3 more hunt-* skills beyond what you have loaded. Pick ones that match observed surface (e.g., custom login → hunt-auth-bypass; SOAP endpoints → look for protocol-specific skills; URL parameters → hunt-ssrf).
Re-attack the same surface with the new skill checklists. Walk every step in the new skills, even if it feels redundant.
Document negatives as you go — a confirmed "no bug here" is itself a finding for the user to see (it proves coverage).
Only after exhausting 3 new skills' checklists do you push back, and only with a concrete list of what was tested.
Lesson from an authorized engagement: After a first-pass of 5 weak findings the user said "I have 10+, find them." Loading hunt-auth-bypass (which had been loaded but not walked through end-to-end) immediately surfaced the /_vti_bin/Authentication.asmx legacy SOAP login — the highest-impact bug in the engagement. The user was right; pushback would have been wrong.
Tool Routing by Phase
Phase
Tools
Why this order
Recon: Subdomains
subfinder -> amass -> puredns -> httpx
Passive first (no detection) -> resolve DNS -> probe HTTP + tech stack
Recon: URLs
gau + waymore -> katana -> uro
Archive (forgotten endpoints) -> active crawl (JS-rendered) -> deduplicate
Recon: JS
jsluice + mantra + trufflehog --only-verified
Extract URLs/secrets -> find API keys -> verify keys actually work
Recon: Ports
naabu (wide) -> rustscan (deep)
Fast top-1000 sweep -> full 65535 on interesting targets
Recon: Scan
nuclei -tags cve -> nuclei -tags takeover
Known CVEs first -> then takeover (act immediately)
Record any "weird but not yet exploitable" behaviors (future gadgets)
Update notes with failed attempts (don't re-test with same techniques)
Log findings with /remember
PART 4: METHODOLOGY DISCIPLINE (False-Positive Prevention)
Most retracted findings come from four recurring process bugs. Each has a hard rule.
Important framing: These discipline rules are about correctness of findings — not throttling of effort. They tell you which signals are real findings and which aren't. They do not tell you to send fewer probes. If you find yourself using these rules to justify stopping early, you're misreading them — load redteam-mindset (DO NOT STOP primary directive) and continue. Coverage discipline and finding-correctness discipline are orthogonal axes; you need both on full.
Marker Discipline
When testing for reflection, cache poisoning, parameter pollution, or OOB SSRF, the marker string you inject MUST be unique and unmistakable.
Rules:
Markers are random alphanumeric strings, 8+ characters, no English words, no protocol keywords.
NEVER use test, marker, evil, attacker, payload, javascript, script, AAAA, BBBB, your domain name, or any string that could plausibly appear naturally in the target's HTML/JS/error messages.
Good markers:cpmark987abc, x4hd2k9pq, a Collaborator subdomain prefix like dlsrcurl.<collab>.oastify.com, or __ZZ_MARKER_<random>_ZZ__.
Before claiming reflection: search the baseline (no-marker) response for the marker string. If it appears naturally, change your marker. This single check catches 80% of false-positive reflection reports.
For OOB testing, sub-tag each Collaborator payload (e.g., dlsrcurl.<collab>, authsrc.<collab>) so callbacks identify the specific sink that fired.
Lesson from an authorized engagement: Initial scan flagged X-Forwarded-Proto: javascript as reflecting into multiple SharePoint pages. The "reflection" was the literal word javascript appearing naturally in SP help-link hrefs (href="javascript:HelpWindowKey(...)"). False positive caused by a non-unique marker.
Body-Diff Rule
A bypass claim requires response body differential, not just status code.
Rules:
200 OK with byte-identical body to the baseline is NOT a bypass.
200 OK with a 5-byte difference might be — verify what changed (correlation ID? timestamp? real content?).
Always diff the body side-by-side before claiming bypass: diff <(curl ... baseline) <(curl ... bypass).
Status-code-only claims (e.g. "Host header X gave 200 instead of 403") are the most common rejected-as-N/A category on bug bounty platforms.
Lesson from an authorized engagement:Host: target.example:80@evil.example.com returned HTTP 200 instead of the baseline 403. Looked like a Host-header bypass. But the body was byte-identical (8341 bytes both) — the AWS ELB normalised the Host to target.example:80, dropping the @evil portion. Not a bypass.
Statistical-Sample Rule (for timing-based claims)
Single outliers are NOT signal. Network jitter routinely produces 2× outliers.
Rules for any user-enum / blind-SQLi / blind-NoSQLi / timing-side-channel claim:
Minimum sample size: n ≥ 10 INTERLEAVED trials per group (control + test, randomised order, not back-to-back).
Compute mean, median, σ for each group.
A signal requires the suspect group's mean to be ≥ 2σ above the control group's mean.
A single 2× outlier in n=1 testing is jitter, not signal.
Lesson from an authorized engagement: Single-shot probe showed Administrator taking 1527 ms vs ~700 ms control on Authentication.asmx Login — looked like clear user-enum signal. Reproduction with n=80 interleaved trials across 8 groups collapsed every group to mean=685-716 ms, σ=25-74 ms. The 1527 ms was network jitter. Finding retracted.
Shell-Loop Ban (>5 iterations)
For any iteration that runs more than 5 times, use Python (with try/except per iteration), not shell for-loops.
Why: zsh array expansion fails silently on edge cases. A loop like for x in "${arr[@]}" can produce zero iterations with no error if the array wasn't populated by the previous command. The user sees output that looks complete but actually skipped the test entirely.
Rules:
Loops of ≤5 hardcoded items in shell: OK.
Anything that iterates a list, file, or computed range: Python.
Always count results. If you expected 100 probes and got <50 lines of output, your loop ate something.
Lesson from an authorized engagement: A zsh array-iteration verb-tampering test silently produced no curl invocations across 20+ iterations (zsh ate the array). Output looked like "HIT [GET] /_api/web → " repeated for every probe but the actual response was missing. ~50 probes worth of testing lost. Switching the test to Python with explicit per-iteration logging surfaced the real results.
Verification
Run this self-test to confirm the methodology's quality gates are operational:
Marker uniqueness test — confirm baseline check catches false positives:
Shell-loop ban verification — confirm Python iteration works reliably:
python3 -c "
items = ['a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j']
results = []
for item in items:
results.append(f'processed:{item}')
expected = 10
actual = len(results)
print(f'PASS: {actual}/{expected} items processed' if actual == expected else f'FAIL: {actual}/{expected}')
" 2>/dev/null || echo"FAIL: Python3 unavailable"
Mode confirmation check — verify the engagement-type decision framework is understood:
If all 5 tests pass, the methodology discipline rules are verifiable. Tests 1-2 are the most common false-positive sources in real engagements.
Related Skills & Chains
hunt-dispatch — When PART 0 mode is confirmed (redteam / wapt + blackbox|greybox). Workflow primitive: after the engagement-type answer is locked, hand off to hunt-dispatch to fingerprint the target and load the matching platform + hunt-* skill set; this skill stops being the active context once dispatch prints its taxonomy.
bug-bounty — When the user asks a generic "what should I do" or starts a new target. Workflow primitive: bug-bounty is the orchestrator that names which hunt-* skills to load by topic; this skill (bb-methodology) provides the 5-phase workflow that orchestrator runs against.
triage-validation — When a finding completes Phase 4 and is about to be written up. Workflow primitive: Phase 5 explicitly calls /validate (the 7-Question Gate); only findings that pass all 7 questions get handed off to report-writing.
offensive-osint + web2-recon — When Phase 1 (Recon) is active. Workflow primitive: Phase 1's "Wide approach" delegates to offensive-osint for asset arsenal and web2-recon for the live-host + URL pipeline.
Operator Notes
Engagement-derived additions to the vendored foundation. Wisdom from real
authorized engagements + Phase 2 verification across this repo's 31+
skill-area live tests. The upstream methodology covers the WHAT; this
layer covers the WHEN-IT-ACTUALLY-WORKS and the FAILURE-MODES.
What the methodology doesn't tell you
The vendored 5-phase workflow is a checklist; real engagements are improvisation. Sometimes you skip phases entirely — a client hands you a single URL and a JWT, recon was already done by their internal team, and Phase 1 collapses to a 10-minute fingerprint. Sometimes you spend 80% of the engagement in Phase 1 because the scope is a 200-asset financial-services parent org and asset discovery IS the work. The methodology is a map of terrain that exists in every engagement, not a sequence you traverse uniformly.
Mode-confirmation, in practice
PART 0 (the bug-bounty vs WAPT vs red-team gate at the top of this file) is a hard rule, but the answer isn't always handed to you. Read the scope language:
When the language is mixed (common — clients often write WAPT-shaped SOWs and call them red-team engagements), default to bug-bounty discipline until proven otherwise. It's the most validation-strict mode; you can always relax later if the client confirms red-team. The reverse — assuming red-team latitude on what turns out to be a WAPT — gets findings retracted at delivery.
Phase priority shifts by target type
The 5 phases are not equal-weight. Engagement type dictates the time allocation:
Engagement
Recon
Hunt
Validate+Report
SaaS bug-bounty (defined scope)
10%
70%
20%
External red-team (wide scope)
40%
30%
30%
WAPT (asset list provided)
0%
60%
40%
Enterprise on-prem (single product)
5%
50%
45%
If you find yourself spending 50% of a SaaS bug-bounty engagement in recon, you're procrastinating on the hunt. If you're spending 10% of an external red-team engagement on recon, you've already lost — the attack surface map IS the deliverable on those.
When to break the methodology
If you find a Critical in the first 30 minutes of recon, stop reconning, validate the Critical fully, report it, then return to recon. The methodology says "complete the phase before moving on" — the value-per-hour curve disagrees. A confirmed Critical paying out within 24h of engagement start is worth more than a comprehensive asset list you'll never get to chain.
The same applies in reverse: if you've been hunting a candidate for 4+ hours and it won't reproduce on a second account, the candidate is dead. Don't sink another 4 hours into making a dead candidate reproduce. Drop it, document the retraction in your notes, move on.
The discipline rules are non-negotiable
The discipline rules in this file — OOB Gate, Marker Discipline, Body-Diff Rule, Statistical-Sample Rule, Server-Policy-vs-State, Pre-Severity Gate, Shell-Loop Ban — are not methodology. They are quality gates. Methodology is the order of operations; these are the validation guarantees at each step.
Verified across Phase 2D's hardened-lab campaign: 8/8 discipline rules fired correctly against fake-bug-shaped behavior (URL echo dressed as XSS, word collision dressed as reflection, status-code-only "bypasses" with byte-identical bodies, 200-OK leak-claims with no actual leak data). Validation rates fall sharply when these rules get skipped. The friction is the feature — if a rule feels obstructive, that's it doing its job. The findings it kills are the half that would have come back N/A anyway.
evidence-hygiene — When Phase 5 is collecting PoC screenshots / HARs. Workflow primitive: before any cookie / PII appears in a screenshot, hand off to evidence-hygiene for the redaction protocol.
