GAN Evolution Engine

• Outcome: Review
• Latest audit: May 29, 2026, 9:28 PM
• Version:
  1.0.0

Overview

The skill mostly matches its stated GAN-style evolution purpose, but it directly executes generated or target-skill code on the host and reads local credential files without enough disclosure or containment.

Install only if you are comfortable running it in an isolated workspace or container with no sensitive secrets mounted. Do not point it at proprietary or secret-bearing skills unless you accept that code may be sent to OpenRouter, and avoid --publish or local EvoMap/OpenRouter credential files unless you have reviewed the exact commands and paths.

SkillSpector

By NVIDIA

Vulnerability Patterns

• Excessive Agency: Unrestricted Tool Access, Autonomous Decision Making, Scope Creep
• Behavioral AST: exec() Call, eval() Call, Dynamic Import
• MCP Tool Poisoning: Hidden Instructions, Unicode Deception, Parameter Description Injection
• Prompt Injection: Instruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands
• Data Exfiltration: External Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration

Findings (72)

subprocess module call

Medium

• Category: Dangerous Code Execution

Content

try:
            # Run benchmark in skill's workspace context
            result = subprocess.run(
                ["python3", str(benchmark_script)],
                cwd=skill_path,
                capture_output=True,

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: result = subprocess.run( ["python3", str(benchmark_script)], cwd=skill_path, capture_output=True, text=True,

subprocess module call

Medium

• Category: Dangerous Code Execution

Content

try:
            # Warm-up run
            subprocess.run(
                ["python3", str(main_script), "--benchmark"],
                capture_output=True,
                timeout=10

• Confidence: 97% confidence
• Finding: subprocess.run( ["python3", str(main_script), "--benchmark"], capture_output=True, timeout=10 )

subprocess module call

Medium

• Category: Dangerous Code Execution

Content

# Timed run
            start = time.time()
            subprocess.run(
                ["python3", str(main_script), "--benchmark"],
                capture_output=True,
                timeout=30

• Confidence: 97% confidence
• Finding: subprocess.run( ["python3", str(main_script), "--benchmark"], capture_output=True, timeout=30 )

subprocess module call

Medium

• Category: Dangerous Code Execution

Content

return 0.5

        try:
            process = subprocess.Popen(
                ["python3", str(main_script), "--benchmark"],
                stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                stderr=subprocess.PIPE

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: process = subprocess.Popen( ["python3", str(main_script), "--benchmark"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE )

subprocess module call

Medium

• Category: Dangerous Code Execution

Content

]

            logger.info(f"Running publish: {' '.join(cmd)}")
            result = subprocess.run(cmd, capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=120)

            if result.returncode == 0:
                logger.info("✅ Capsule published successfully")

• Confidence: 88% confidence
• Finding: result = subprocess.run(cmd, capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=120)

Intent-Code Divergence

High

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: The document claims the scripts only output text and do not modify files or run commands, yet the setup explicitly configures command hooks that execute shell scripts on prompt submission and tool-use events. This misleading assurance can cause users to install auto-executing hooks with elevated trust, increasing the chance of hidden code execution, persistence, or unauthorized side effects.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: The file content does not match the advertised skill metadata: it implements a self-improvement logging and memory-promotion workflow rather than a GAN-style evolution engine. This kind of capability mismatch is dangerous because operators and downstream tooling may grant permissions or trust based on the declared skill identity while the actual behavior performs persistent logging, memory promotion, and cross-session sharing.

Intent-Code Divergence

Medium

• Confidence: 95% confidence
• Finding: The document states the hook scripts 'only output text' and 'don't modify files or run commands,' but the configuration explicitly invokes shell commands via the hook system. This misrepresentation can cause users to under-trust-boundary the feature and install automatically executed scripts without appropriate review, increasing the risk of unintended code execution or privilege misuse.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High

• Confidence: 95% confidence
• Finding: The script is framed as a benchmark for the current skill package, but hardcodes paths and labels for a different skill (`self-improving-agent`). In a GAN evolution/publishing pipeline, this can misattribute benchmark results to the wrong artifact, allowing untested or lower-quality variants to appear validated and be promoted or published.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

Medium

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: The 'learning capture' test never invokes the skill or its learning mechanism; it only writes a synthetic file into a temporary directory and checks that the write succeeded. This produces misleading pass results, which can let broken or deceptive self-improvement behavior pass quality gates and be selected in an automated evolution workflow.

Intent-Code Divergence

Medium

• Confidence: 97% confidence
• Finding: The execution-speed benchmark claims to measure skill operations but only times creation and deletion of temporary files. This can fabricate favorable performance characteristics unrelated to the skill, weakening benchmark integrity and potentially causing poor-performing variants to be selected or trusted.

Intent-Code Divergence

Medium

• Confidence: 97% confidence
• Finding: The memory benchmark measures generic Python allocation behavior rather than the skill's memory profile. As a result, it may report stability even when the real skill leaks memory or uses excessive resources, undermining operational safeguards in automated evaluation.

Intent-Code Divergence

Medium

• Confidence: 96% confidence
• Finding: The output-format test claims to validate generated outputs but only checks for static files in a hardcoded directory and minimal manifest keys. In this context, that can falsely certify packaging/output compliance and mask broken runtime behavior or mismatched artifacts, especially when integrated with automated publication.

Intent-Code Divergence

Medium

• Confidence: 91% confidence
• Finding: The document claims the hook scripts 'only output text' and 'don't modify files or run commands,' but they are explicitly configured as command hooks and therefore execute as local programs with the agent's privileges. This misleading assurance can cause operators to under-trust the execution risk, increasing the chance they enable unreviewed scripts in sensitive environments.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High

• Confidence: 97% confidence
• Finding: The script is clearly hard-coded and documented to benchmark a different skill (`self-improving-agent`) than the declared `gan-evolution-engine` context. In a skill packaging or publication pipeline, this kind of identity mismatch can cause the wrong files to be validated, scored, or published, undermining trust in benchmark outputs and enabling accidental or intentional substitution of artifacts.

Intent-Code Divergence

High

• Confidence: 96% confidence
• Finding: The module docstring claims to benchmark the `self-improving-agent` skill, which contradicts the surrounding skill identity and reinforces that this file was copied or repurposed without proper isolation. In an automated evolution/publish workflow, misleading documentation and embedded identifiers can cause operators or tooling to trust results produced for the wrong target, creating integrity and supply-chain risk.

Intent-Code Divergence

High

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: The security section asserts the scripts 'only output text' and 'don't modify files or run commands,' yet the documented hook mechanism explicitly executes shell commands via type=command. This misleading assurance can cause users to enable automatic command execution under false assumptions, reducing scrutiny and increasing the chance of unsafe code running in every session.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High

• Confidence: 96% confidence
• Finding: The benchmark script is hard-coded to evaluate and write results for a different skill (`self-improving-agent`) instead of the declared `gan-evolution-engine` context. In a skill evolution/publishing pipeline, this can misattribute fitness results, overwrite another skill's benchmark artifacts, and cause the wrong package to be promoted or trusted based on invalid evidence.

Intent-Code Divergence

High

• Confidence: 91% confidence
• Finding: The docstrings and user-facing output repeatedly state that this benchmarks `self-improving-agent`, which contradicts the enclosing `gan-evolution-engine` skill. Even if partly cosmetic, in an automated GAN-like evolution workflow this misleading metadata can cause operators or downstream tooling to trust, compare, or publish results under the wrong identity, amplifying the cross-skill confusion.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

High

• Confidence: 99% confidence
• Finding: This is the core security issue: the discriminator executes arbitrary benchmark code supplied by evaluated skill variants. In this skill's context, variants are generated and mutated automatically, making trust especially weak and increasing the chance that harmful code is introduced and then executed during evaluation.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

High

• Confidence: 99% confidence
• Finding: Speed and fitness measurement directly run the evaluated variants, so any variant can execute code merely by being scored. In a GAN/evolution engine, this is more dangerous than normal plugin execution because many automatically produced variants may be tested in bulk, amplifying exposure and making accidental or adversarial payloads more likely.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

• Confidence: 91% confidence
• Finding: The script reads EvoMap credentials from environment variables and from ~/.evomap files, which is broader than the stated purpose of evolving skills and gives the tool access to secrets in the host environment. In an agent-skill context, secret discovery is especially sensitive because the skill can exfiltrate or misuse credentials during optional publishing.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

• Confidence: 90% confidence
• Finding: Executing an external publishing program adds process-spawning behavior outside the core evolution function and creates a bridge to outbound actions. In agent environments, this broadens the attack surface and can be abused to perform unintended publication or trigger code in another script with inherited privileges.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

• Confidence: 94% confidence
• Finding: The generator reads API keys and rotation state from hardcoded secret locations outside the supplied skill path, expanding its trust boundary to unrelated local secrets. In an agent environment, this can cause unauthorized credential harvesting and use of credentials the operator did not intend this skill to access.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High

• Confidence: 98% confidence
• Finding: The code packages full skill source and sends it to an external LLM provider, which is a clear outbound data exfiltration path for potentially sensitive code, prompts, and embedded secrets. Because the manifest description does not disclose this transmission, users may unknowingly expose proprietary or confidential material to a third party.

VirusTotal

63/63 vendors flagged this skill as clean.