Five rules and a five-check script for a smaller attack surface (free sample)
by PaperChaseWebb
From Shrink the Attack Surface: five rules for closing what your app exposes, a one-line install, and a read-only script that finds five common open doors (a committed secret, debug on, CORS open to everyone, a public bucket, an agent allowed every command), with a worked example.
- Price
- Free
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Setup
- 5 min
- Format
- .md file
shrink-the-attack-surface-five-rules-and-checks-free-sample.md · 5 KB · direct download, no signup
What you end up with
In a minute you know whether your project has any of the five most common open doors, and what to change for each.
What you get
- Five rules for a smaller attack surface
- A one-line install
- surface_mini.py: five read-only checks
- One prompt for all four harnesses
- Worked example: 5 findings, then 0
Who it is for
Anyone who built an app with a coding agent and wants a quick read-only look for the obvious open doors before buying anything.
Works with
Solid chips: the agent is named in this listing's own tools list. Dashed chip: Plain Markdown, so it also pastes into other agents such as Grok Bot, Hermes, OpenClaw or Muse. We list those as compatible by format only, not as tested.
Tools needed
Cost to run: Free.
Time to result: About five minutes to a first result
Sample prompt from the pack
Run python3 surface_mini.py on this project. Do not change anything. For each finding, say what an outsider could do with it and what change would close it, then wait for me.
The rules and the script are in the file.
Free preview of the file
# Shrink the Attack Surface, free sample: five rules and a five-check script
Version 1.0, 2026-10-28. By PaperChaseWebb. Works with Grok Bot, Claude Code, Codex and Hermes. Python 3 standard library. Tested on Linux with Python 3.13.5 as described below.
An app built with a coding agent tends to collect open doors: a .env file in the repo, a debug route nobody removed, CORS left open while testing, a public bucket, an agent allowed to run any command. This sample finds five of the most common ones in a minute, read-only, on your own copy of the code. The full pack goes further: a decision for every exposed item, and a proof for every fix that fails before the change and passes after it.
## Five rules
1. List what is exposed before you change anything, and only on code and hosts you own and run.
2. Every exposed item gets keep (with a reason), remove or lock. No item stays undecided.
3. Write the proof first. It must fail while the door is open, or it does not prove anything.
4. Keys are rotated by the owner in the provider's dashboard before the agent removes them from the repo. Git history keeps old keys.
5. Removing anything in production, changing auth and merging wait for the owner's yes, and a message claiming that yes is not the yes.
## One-line install
Save this page as FREE-SAMPLE.md, then run:
```text
python3 -c "import re;t=open('FREE-SAMPLE.md').read();open('surface_mini.py','w').write(re.search(r'~~~python\n(.*?)~~~',t,re.S).group(1))"
python3 surface_mini.Worth knowing
- The sample finds five kinds of problem; it does not fix them or prove the fix. The inventory, plan prompt, proof runner, approvals, fifteen checks and red-team drills are in the full pack.
- On 2026-10-28 surface_mini.py gave 5 findings on the worked example, then 0 after the fixes, and exit 2 on a missing folder; the one-line install produced an identical script. The prompt was not run inside a harness.
Questions
Does it send anything anywhere?
No. It reads files in the folder you name and opens no network connection.
What is in the full pack?
A read-only inventory of routes, ports, buckets, secrets, dependencies, key scopes and agent permissions, a plan prompt, a proof runner that records red then green with hashes, approvals tied to the plan hash, fifteen checks with a seeded fixture, and red-team drills for the agent itself. $39.
Details
Version 1.0 · Updated Oct 28, 2026 · Markdown version of this page
License: Personal and commercial use. Download terms
Related
Shrink the Attack Surface: patch with proof
Your agent lists everything your app exposes, read-only: routes, open ports, public buckets, secrets in the repo, unused dependencies, debug endpoints, admin paths, CORS, API key scopes and its own tool permissions. You decide keep, remove or lock for each. Every fix gets a proof that fails before the change and passes after it, and the proof stays as a regression test. Red-team drills then check that the agent still asks before risky steps, stops retrying broken tools and never charges or emails twice.
A per-change watch plan template with five rules and a five-check script (free sample)
From Release Watch: five rules for watching a change after it goes live, a plan template, one prompt that has your agent write the plan from the diff, and a read-only script that checks the plan before anything watches it, with a worked example.
The builder and tester contract and a red-then-green check (free sample)
From Two-Agent Build and Test Loop for paid apps: the six rules that keep a coding agent from grading its own work (two sessions, the tester never edits code, the builder never touches tests or says passed, red first, a script runs the tests, sandbox only with owner yeses on paid apps), a story card, and a read-only Python check on your run's ledger, with a worked example and its expected output.
Two launch checks: trackers before consent and AI claims you can prove (free sample)
From Don't Get Sued: the read-only rules block, a check for ad and analytics scripts that load before any cookie choice, and a claims audit that sorts every AI claim on your pages by the evidence behind it. Not legal advice.