quickstart
The front door for this repo. With no argument: a 30-second intro, then an offer to walk you through your first run on the canary target. With a question: answers it from this repo's own docs and source, cites where it looked, and hands you the next command. Use for "how do I…", "why does…", "where
By anthropics · 949 installs
npx skills add anthropics/defending-code-reference-harness --skill quickstart
Source repository · Upstream listing
/quickstart
Two modes, picked by whether $ARGUMENTS is empty.
Empty → Intro mode. Short orientation, then offer the guided first run.
Non empty → Help mode. Treat $ARGUMENTS as the operator's question.
Intro mode
Keep it short and a little warm; this is the first thing a new operator sees.
Say roughly:
Welcome! This repo takes you from finding your first vulnerability to
patching at scale, using a set of Claude Code skills and an autonomous
pipeline. Two ways in: interactive skills (no setup, safe, start here)
and the autonomous pipeline (Docker, scales to hundreds of parallel
agents).
The ramp up:
Day 1 Threat model + first static scan + triage
Day 2 Run the reference pipeline (C/C++)
Day 3 4 Customize it for your stack
Week 2 Autonomous scanning, triage, and patching
Day 1 goal: threat model, scan, and triage the bundled canary target.
Most teams get there before lunch.
Remind them to export CLAUDE CODE SUBAGENT MODEL=<model id so subagents
use the same model as the session.
Then AskUserQuestion with three options:
1. Walk me through Day 1 on the canary (~10 min) → run "Guided first
run" below.
2. I have a question → ask what it is, then switch to Help mode.
3. I'll read the README → point at README.md Step 1 and stop.
Guided first run
Runs the three Step 1 skills on targets/canary , pausing after each to show
what landed on disk. These only read/write files in the repo; no sandbox
needed.
1. /threat model bootstrap targets/canary via Task. When done, open
THREAT MODEL.md , show the focus areas, explain in 2 3 sentences how
this steers the scan.
2. /vuln scan targets/canary via Task. When done, open
targets/canary/VULN FINDINGS.md , summarize the count and top 2 3
findings, point at VULN FINDINGS.json .
3. /triage targets/canary/VULN FINDINGS.json via Task. When done, open
TRIAGE.md , explain what changed vs. raw findings (verified, deduped,
re ranked).
Pause for the operator between each (AskUserQuestion); don't barrel through.
Close with a one line recap of the three artifacts on disk, then point at
README Step 2 for the execution verified pipeline. Never run vuln pipeline
or anything that executes target code here ; that's Step 2 and needs
Docker + a sandbox.
Help mode
Answer the operator's question using this repo as ground truth : README,
docs/ .md , harness/ .py , dnr harness/ .py , targets/ /config.yaml ,
.claude/skills/ .
Don't answer from general knowledge when the repo has a specific answer.
Routing map
If the question is about… Read first Then offer
running the pipeline docs/pipeline.md , README Step 2 the recon / run command
too many findings, triage docs/triage.md /triage <path
porting, Java/Go/Rust/etc. docs/customizing.md , README Step 3 /customize
safety, sandbox, Docker docs/security.md cite; no action
rate limits, 429, token budget docs/pipeline.md : Rate limits, docs/troubleshooting.md rate limits cite the numbers
duplicates, dedup docs/troubleshooting.md duplicate findings known bugs: hint
CLI flags, "what does X do" harness/cli.py (grep the argparse) exact flag + example
which model, subagent pinning docs/troubleshooting.md : Subagents the export line
best practices, prompting docs/best practices.md , docs/prompting.md cite the principle
threat model, attack surface, scope docs/threat model.md /threat model bootstrap <target dir
scan, audit, find vulns .claude/skills/vuln scan/SKILL.md /vuln scan <target dir
"how do I start" README Step 1 offer Guided first run
patching, fix, diff, re attack docs/patching.md , README Step 4 /patch <input
threat hunting, incident response, logs docs/detection response.md /dnr hunt or /dnr respond
autonomous D&R, dnrcanary docs/detection response.md , targets/dnrcanary/README.md the dnr pipeline run command
binary, embedded, other domains docs/other use cases.md cite section
anything else README Table of contents best match doc
Answer format
1. Direct answer in 2 5 sentences.
2. source: the file(s) and section you used.
3. Next action: one copy pasteable command or skill invocation, if one
applies. If none does, say so.
4. If the question is ambiguous, ask one clarifying question; don't guess.
Constraints
Never fabricate CLI flags or file paths. If unsure, Grep for it in
harness/cli.py or the target configs and quote what you find.
If the repo doesn't answer the question, say so plainly and suggest the
operator open a GitHub issue on this repo.
Keep the Q&A dry and cited. Save the warmth for Intro mode.