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NVIDIA

SkillSpector

NVIDIA's security scanner for agent skills: 71 patterns across 17 categories — prompt injection, exfiltration, supply chain, MCP tool poisoning — static plus optional LLM pass, SARIF output.

19,949 1,752 Python Apache-2.0updated yesterday
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Curator's take

Run it before installing any third-party skill or MCP bundle — 26% of skills in its research set had vulnerabilities and 5% looked malicious. Fast static pass offline (`--no-llm`), optional LLM semantic review, baselines so re-scans flag only new issues, SARIF for CI. It's a pre-install gate: it can't see what a skill does at runtime, so pair it with runtime enforcement.

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README.md2 min read

SkillSpector

Security scanner for AI agent skills. Detect vulnerabilities, malicious patterns, and security risks before installing agent skills.

Python 3.12+ License: Apache 2.0

Overview

AI agent skills (used by Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, etc.) execute with implicit trust and minimal vetting. In the 31,132-skill analyzed subset of the research dataset, 26.1% of skills contain vulnerabilities and 5.2% show likely malicious intent.

SkillSpector helps you answer: "Is this skill safe to install?"

SkillSpector is part of the NVIDIA Verified Skills pipeline, which scans, evaluates, and signs agent skills before publication. Skills that pass are published to the NVIDIA skills catalog.

Documentation

  • Scan agent skills before installation — Hosted guide: when to scan, how to read a report, and how to gate installs.
  • Development guide — Architecture, package layout, and how to extend the analyzer pipeline.
  • Analysis resource bounds — Fail-closed bundle, parser, nested-artifact, ledger, and finding ceilings.
  • Pi extension — Install SkillSpector as a Pi tool for scanning skills from inside agent sessions.
  • OpenCode extension — Install SkillSpector as an OpenCode tool and /skillspector command for scanning skills from inside agent sessions.

Features

  • Multi-format input: Scan Git repos, URLs, zip files, directories, or single files
  • 71 vulnerability patterns across 17 categories: prompt injection, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, excessive agency, output handling, system prompt leakage, memory poisoning, tool misuse, rogue agent, anti-refusal, trigger abuse, dangerous code (AST), taint tracking, YARA signatures, MCP least privilege, and MCP tool poisoning
  • Two-stage analysis: Fast static analysis + optional LLM semantic evaluation
  • Live vulnerability lookups: SC4 queries OSV.dev for real-time CVE data with automatic offline fallback
  • Multiple output formats: Terminal, JSON, Markdown, and SARIF reports
  • Risk scoring: 0-100 score with severity labels and clear recommendations
  • Baseline / false-positive suppression: Accept known findings via a glob-rule or fingerprint baseline so re-scans surface only new issues (docs)

Quick Start

Installation

Open-source software notice: This project will download and install additional third-party open source software projects. Review the license terms of these open source projects before use.

Create and activate a virtual environment first (all make targets assume the venv is active). Use uv or pip; the Makefile uses uv if available, otherwise pip.

Quick install with uv (CLI-only):

uv tool install git+https://github.com/NVIDIA/skillspector.git
# Update later: uv tool update skillspector

If you plan to run skillspector mcp, install the MCP extra at install time:

uv tool install 'skillspector[mcp] @ git+https://github.com/NVIDIA/skillspector.git'

From source:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA/skillspector.git
cd skillspector

# Create and activate virtual environment
uv venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
# or: python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate

# Install for production use
make install

# Or install with development dependencies
make install-dev

Docker (no Python required)

Run SkillSpector without installing Python by building it locally from the included [Dockerfile](Do