Owasp zap
A comprehensive skill catalog for AI agents
npx -y skills add G1Joshi/Agent-Skills --skill owasp-zapAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
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OWASP ZAP security testing proxy. Use for security testing.
SKILL.md
2.2 KB, 509 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it
OWASP ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy)
OWASP ZAP is the world's most widely used free web app scanner. It is perfect for developers and functional testers who are new to penetration testing, as well as automated CI/CD pipelines.
When to Use
- CI/CD Automation: "DAST in the pipeline". Run a baseline scan on every PR.
- Budget constraints: It's free and open-source (vs Burp Pro's license).
- Headless Scanning: Controlling the scanner via API or CLI (Docker).
Quick Start (Docker)
# Run a quick scan against a URL
docker run -t owasp/zap2docker-stable zap-baseline.py -t https://www.example.com
Core Concepts
Active Scan (Attack)
ZAP modifies requests to attack the application (SQLi, XSS, Command Injection). Use with caution.
Passive Scan
ZAP watches traffic (via Proxy) and reports alerts without modifying requests (e.g., missing headers, cookie flags). Safe for production.
HUD (Heads Up Display)
Injects the ZAP UI directly into your browser, allowing you to control the scan while browsing the target site.
Best Practices (2025)
Do:
- Automate Baseline Scans: integrate
zap-baseline.pyin GitHub Actions for quick sanity checks. - Authenticate: Configure ZAP to handle login (Authentication Context) so it can scan authenticated routes.
- Filter False Positives: DAST tools are noisy. Create a Context file to ignore irrelevant alerts.
Don't:
- Don't Attack Unauthorized Targets: ZAP is a weapon. Ensure you have permission.
- Don't rely solely on DAST: Combine with SAST (SonarQube) and SCA (Snyk).
Troubleshooting
| Error | Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
Scan takes forever | Spider got stuck. | Exclude logout URLs or calendar/looping paths from the context. |
Authentication Failed | ZAP couldn't log in. | Use the ZAP Desktop UI to record a Login Sequence (Zest Script). |
References
What ships with it
Read from the repository
Just SKILL.md. No reference files, no scripts.
Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most security skills give in 509 tokens
Counted across 648 of the 828 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-08-07
- Parameterize all database queriesin 68 of 648, across 51 files
- Hash passwords using bcrypt, scrypt, or argon2in 49 of 648, across 36 files
- Apply rate limiting to authentication endpointsin 48 of 648, across 24 files
- Configure security headersin 35 of 648, across 19 files
- Validate all inputsin 32 of 648, across 24 files
- Validate all external input at the system boundaryin 29 of 648, across 19 files
- Run containers as a non-root userin 28 of 648, across 15 files
- Use httponly secure samesite cookies for sessionsin 26 of 648, across 15 files
- Run dependency audits before every releasein 21 of 648, across 10 files
- Encode output to prevent cross-site scriptingin 21 of 648, across 11 files
- Copy dependencies before source codein 20 of 648, across 9 files
- Store secrets in environment variablesin 20 of 648, across 18 files
Said here and by no other author read
- run baseline scans on every pull request
- integrate zap-baseline.py in CI pipelines
- configure authentication to scan authenticated routes
- exclude logout URLs from scan contexts
- record login sequences using desktop UI
Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.