hunt-summary

Hunt Summary

Analyze the current session's transcript and write a durable, self-contained checkpoint to grimoire/hunt-summary-<datetime>.md in the audit workspace. The summary is the handoff: a future hunt — run by you or another researcher — should be able to read it cold and continue without re-deriving everything this session learned.

Philosophy

A hunt is a long game across many sessions. Context windows end; the engagement doesn't. The expensive part of security research is not the writing — it is the discovery, the ruling-out, and the half-formed hypotheses that live only in this conversation. When the session closes, that state evaporates unless it is captured. This skill captures it.

Dead ends are findings too. The most valuable thing one session gives the next is often what not to bother with. Record why a path was ruled out, not just that it was — otherwise the next run re-walks it.

Be honest about confidence. A conclusive find is proven with an artifact. A lead is a hypothesis. Do not promote leads to finds, and do not bury a real find as a lead. Calibrated status is what makes the summary trustworthy enough to act on.

Mine the transcript; do not invent. Everything in the summary must trace to something that actually happened this session — a file you read, a behavior you confirmed, a hypothesis you raised. If the session was thin, the summary should be short. Padding destroys the document's value.

Workflow

When this skill is activated, create a todo list from the following steps. Mark each task in_progress before starting it and completed when done.

- [ ] 1. Locate the audit workspace and resolve the output path + timestamp
- [ ] 2. Mine the transcript — extract discoveries, finds, leads, dead ends, open questions, next actions
- [ ] 3. Reconcile against on-disk artifacts (findings/, sigil-findings/, tomes/, spells/, cartography)
- [ ] 4. Draft the hunt summary from the template
- [ ] 5. Write grimoire/hunt-summary-<datetime>.md
- [ ] 6. Present the summary and offer to fold key items into GRIMOIRE.md

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1. Locate the Audit Workspace and Resolve the Output Path

The summary belongs in the engagement's grimoire/ workspace directory — the one created by summon, sibling to GRIMOIRE.md and the findings/, tomes/, spells/ subdirectories. It is not related to the Grimoire plugin's own source tree.

Determine the workspace:

• If a grimoire/ directory exists at or above the current working directory (typically next to GRIMOIRE.md), use it.
• If GRIMOIRE.md exists but no grimoire/ directory does, write the summary next to GRIMOIRE.md and note that this does not look like a fully initialized workspace (suggest /summon).
• If neither exists, this session is not running inside a Grimoire workspace. Tell the user, and ask whether to (a) write the summary to the current directory anyway, or (b) stop. Do not silently create a workspace.

Resolve the timestamp with bash so the filename is sortable and collision-free:

date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S

The output path is grimoire/hunt-summary-<datetime>.md (e.g. grimoire/hunt-summary-2026-06-02-143052.md). Never overwrite an existing summary — each run is a new checkpoint, preserving the trail.

2. Mine the Transcript

Review the conversation from the start of this session to now. This is the core of the skill — extract the research state into the five categories below. Work from what actually occurred; quote file paths and file:line references wherever the session produced them.

• Conclusive finds — issues confirmed this session, ideally with a proof artifact (PoC, failing invariant, reproduced behavior). For each: title, severity, exact location, one-line impact, and the path to the proof / finding document.
• Discovered — what was learned about the system: behaviors, mechanisms, trust boundaries, invariants confirmed or broken, surprising couplings. Not necessarily bugs — this is the context that primes the next run.
• Interesting leads — promising hypotheses raised but not yet verified. For each: why it's interesting, where to look next, what evidence would confirm or refute it, and a confidence level (low / medium / high).
• Dead ends — paths explored and ruled out. Record the reasoning — what was checked and why it is not exploitable or not a bug — so the next run does not repeat the work.
• Open questions & next actions — unresolved questions (especially those needing the user, external docs, or scope clarification), and concrete prioritized next steps.

If the transcript is genuinely sparse in a category, write "None this session." Do not fabricate.

3. Reconcile Against On-Disk Artifacts

The transcript is the primary source, but the workspace may contain artifacts the conversation produced or touched. Cross-check so the summary's references are accurate and nothing is dropped:

• grimoire/findings/ and grimoire/sigil-findings/ — finding documents written this session.
• grimoire/tomes/ — detailed notes or flow analyses added or updated.
• grimoire/spells/ — scripts, PoCs, or detection modules created.
• Cartography files (if the cartography skills were used) — flows mapped this session.
• GRIMOIRE.md — note anything the session learned that contradicts or extends it (used in step 6).

List the artifacts touched with their paths. Where a conclusive find has a finding document, link to it with an Obsidian-style wiki link (e.g. [[findings/reentrancy-withdraw]]) to match the workspace's cross-linking convention.

4. Draft the Hunt Summary

Assemble the extracted state into the template below. Keep it scannable — bullets over prose, specifics over generalities. The document must stand alone: a reader with no access to this conversation should understand the state of the hunt.

# Hunt Summary — [Target] — [date]

> Hunt date: [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM]
> Session focus: [one line — what this session set out to do]

## Scope of This Session

[2-4 sentences: which components / flows / contracts were examined, and what prompted the work.]

## Conclusive Finds

[Confirmed issues, proven with an artifact. For each:
- **[Title]** — [severity]. Location: `path:line`. Impact: [one line]. Proof: [path / [[findings/...]]].
If none: "None this session."]

## Discovered

[What was learned about the system — behaviors, mechanisms, invariants, trust boundaries. Context
for the next run, not necessarily bugs. Bulleted.]

## Interesting Leads

[Promising but UNVERIFIED hypotheses. For each:
- **[Lead]** — why it matters; where to look; what would confirm/refute it. Confidence: low/med/high.
If none: "None this session."]

## Dead Ends

[Paths ruled out, WITH reasoning so they are not re-walked. For each:
- **[Path / hypothesis]** — what was checked; why it is not exploitable / not a bug.
If none: "None this session."]

## Open Questions

[Unresolved questions, especially those blocked on the user, external docs, or scope.]

## Artifacts Touched

[Files created or modified this session — findings, tomes, spells/PoCs, cartography. Bulleted, with paths.]

## Next Actions

[Prioritized, concrete next steps for the next hunt run — ordered by expected impact. Each should
be actionable: "Investigate X in `path` because Y." Reference the leads above where relevant.]

5. Write the File

Write the drafted summary to grimoire/hunt-summary-<datetime>.md. Do not overwrite an existing file. Confirm the path back to the user.

6. Present and Offer to Update GRIMOIRE.md

Show the user a brief recap: the output path and a one-line count per section (e.g. "2 conclusive finds, 4 leads, 3 dead ends, 5 next actions").

GRIMOIRE.md is the engagement's living memory. If the session produced durable context — a new crown jewel, a corrected flow, a trust-boundary insight, or a conclusive find — offer to fold a concise version into the relevant GRIMOIRE.md section (e.g. Attack Surface Notes, Crown Jewels). Keep GRIMOIRE.md concise; the full detail lives in the hunt summary. Only update GRIMOIRE.md with the user's confirmation, and never duplicate the entire summary into it.

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Guidelines

• Self-contained handoff. Assume the next reader has none of this conversation. Spell out paths, locations, and reasoning rather than referring to "the function we looked at."
• Calibrated status over optimism. Finds are proven; leads are hypotheses; dead ends are closed with a reason. Mislabeling any of these makes the next run waste time.
• Dead ends earn their place. A ruled-out path with clear reasoning is worth more to the next session than a vague lead. Do not omit them to make the hunt look more productive.
• Brevity scales with substance. A short session yields a short summary. Resist padding — every line should help the next run act.
• Append, never overwrite. Each invocation is a timestamped checkpoint. The series of summaries is itself the hunt's history.