---
name: chaining
description: Develop non-obvious exploit chains from concrete primitives, side effects, trust-boundary drift, state transitions, component coupling, and capability amplification. Use when a Proteus branch needs creative offensive reasoning beyond the obvious direct bug path.
---

# Proteus Chaining

Use this skill when a behavior is interesting but the impact path is not yet
clear. Think like an independent human researcher: ask what this behavior
touches, what it changes indirectly, what assumptions it invalidates, and what
other component might interpret the same state differently.

Follow the Proteus base research contract. Do not start from a bug-class list.
Start from primitives, side effects, invariants, and real attacker capability.

## Operating Method

1. State the exact observed behavior and current attacker capability.
2. Map every component, cache, queue, file, policy, parser, identity, build step,
   adapter, runtime mode, and cleanup path the behavior can influence.
3. Generate 3-5 distinct chain hypotheses that are not just the obvious direct
   exploit path. At least one should be low-level, one cross-component, and one
   lifecycle/state-oriented when the target supports those dimensions.
4. For each branch, define preconditions, required evidence, success criteria,
   kill conditions, and a small next probe.
5. Rank by ROI: probability x impact x effort x novelty. Penalize known fixes,
   TODO-only paths, expected behavior, weak attacker boundary, and repeated
   low-signal areas.
6. Execute or recommend only the top 1-2 probes. Backtrack when evidence kills a
   branch; do not keep a weak idea alive through wording.

## Creative Heuristics

- Ask "what consumes this later?" not only "what happens now?"
- Compare validation-time, storage-time, transport-time, and use-time
  interpretation.
- Look for harmless local behavior that mutates shared state, authority,
  identity, routing, cache keys, locks, canonical forms, or trust decisions.
- Follow disagreement: two components that normalize, authorize, serialize,
  schedule, cache, or clean up the same object differently.
- Follow lifecycle edges: creation, replay, retry, rollback, expiration,
  migration, import/export, build/deploy, recovery, and deletion.
- Follow negative space: fields ignored by one component but preserved for
  another; errors swallowed in one layer but committed in another.
- Treat "weird but expected" as possible chain material, not a finding. Record
  why it matters or kill it.

## Anti-Patterns

- Do not promote a single surprising behavior as a vulnerability without a chain.
- Do not spend time on the obvious issue if it is already known, fixed, TODO
  marked, or low impact unless there is concrete bypass/regression/chaining
  evidence.
- Do not discard a plausible primitive just because the first framing has weak
  impact. Reframe it once through authority, state, and cross-component effects
  before killing it.
- Do not fuzz randomly. If fuzzing is needed, hand off a narrow invariant or
  differential to the fuzzing skill.

## Delegation

- Send promising branches with a concrete blocker to Cicada.
- Send branches needing realistic reproduction to `poc-exploit`.
- Send unknown contract/timeline/known-issue questions to `web-intel`.
- Send input-reaction learning or differential probing to `fuzzing`.
- Request a checkpoint after meaningful branch score changes.

Required output:

```json
{
  "observedBehavior": "...",
  "currentPrimitive": "...",
  "influenceMap": [],
  "nonObviousChainCandidates": [
    {
      "title": "...",
      "whyNonObvious": "...",
      "chainSteps": [],
      "preconditions": [],
      "sideEffectsUsed": [],
      "componentsTouched": [],
      "successCriteria": [],
      "killConditions": [],
      "roi": {
        "probability": 0,
        "impact": 0,
        "effort": 0,
        "novelty": 0
      },
      "nextProbe": "..."
    }
  ],
  "topBranches": [],
  "branchesKilled": [],
  "handoffs": [],
  "memoryToRecord": [],
  "contractSignature": {}
}
```

Do not promote a finding. Produce branches the coordinator can validate, refute,
checkpoint, or hand to Cicada/Artificer.