whitebox-local-surrogate SKILL.md skillA
whitebox-local-surrogate from dreadnode/capabilities is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add dreadnode/capabilities/whitebox-local-surrogate@git:20261021.30680ecPins git:20261021.30680ec in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- dreadnode/capabilities
- Path
capabilities/ai-red-teaming/skills/whitebox-local-surrogate/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20261021.30680ec, committed Oct 21, 2026
- Size
- 2,563 bytes
- Repository stars
- 21
- License
- MIT
How to run white-box (gradient/embedding/activation) attacks, which need a local open-weight surrogate model the user supplies.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# White-box attacks: local surrogate
White-box attacks (the GCG family, embedding-space, generator, and activation
attacks) do not just read the target's text - they optimize against model
internals (gradients, logits, hidden states). That requires a **local open-weight
surrogate model**, which the user provides. The optimized prompt then transfers to
the closed-box target (`dn/*` or BYO API) as usual.
Attacks that need a surrogate: `gcg`, `faster_gcg`, `i_gcg`, `attngcg`, `mask_gcg`,
`arca`, `gbda`, `pez`, `cold`, `soft_gcg`, `amplegcg`, `refusal_ablation`,
`soft_prompt`, `latentbreak`. (`autodan` is closed-box and needs no surrogate.)
## How to run one
Ask the user for the surrogate (a Hugging Face id or local path) and pass it as
`attacker_model`; keep the real model as `target_model`:
```
generate_attack(
attack="gcg",
goal="...",
target_model="dn/claude-opus-4-6", # closed-box transfer target
attacker_model="meta-llama/Llama-2-7b-chat-hf", # LOCAL open-weight surrogate
evaluator_model="dn/claude-opus-4-6",
)
```
For `refusal_ablation` / `soft_prompt` / `latentbreak` (local-only: no transferable
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add dreadnode/capabilities/whitebox-local-surrogate@sha256:55e448a5c3cbe284The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261021.30680ec, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_goqvgtikka6c2yla)
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Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Oct 21, 2026.
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (2563 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
dreadnode/capabilities · 21 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-02 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_goqvgtikka6c2yla GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=dreadnode/capabilities/whitebox-local-surrogate GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/55e448a5c3cbe2848c1e11e4493e369513566fd3b6e4bf65d000fcdf40a2d193
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.