Security-test an API

APIs fail differently from web UIs: there is no rendered surface to crawl, the interesting bugs are authorization-shaped rather than injection-shaped, and the same endpoint behaves differently per token. This workflow targets those specifics with Strix's autonomous agents, using the current OWASP API Security Top 10 (2023) as the coverage checklist. For the web-app equivalent, the current edition is the OWASP Top 10:2025 — see owasp-top-10-testing.

Install, LLM setup, full CLI flags, and the managed-cloud path are in the penetration-testing-with-strix skill. Read it if strix --version fails or the target is not an API. For a run with no Docker and no LLM key, the same binary drives the managed platform: strix cloud login, then strix cloud scans start ... (details in managed-pentesting-with-strix).

1. Gather what the agents need

APIs are near-impossible to test blind, so collect first:

Input	Why it matters
Schema — OpenAPI/Swagger file, Postman collection, GraphQL endpoint (introspection), or a gRPC .proto	Turns guesswork into full endpoint enumeration. Biggest single win in coverage. An OpenAPI/Swagger or Postman spec (.json/.yaml/.yml) is a target Strix takes directly; a .proto is not, so pass it with --workspace-file.
Two sets of credentials/tokens, ideally in different tenants	BOLA/IDOR — API1:2023, still the #1 API risk — can only be proven by accessing tenant A's objects with tenant B's token.
A low-privilege and a high-privilege token	Required to prove broken function-level authorization (API5:2023 — a user calling admin-only routes).
Example object IDs	Lets agents test ID tampering immediately instead of hunting for valid identifiers.
Out-of-scope routes	Payments, mass notification, destructive admin endpoints.
Rate limits / WAF in front of the API	Avoids agents burning budget on throttled requests; mention them so testing adapts.

Ask the user for anything missing — do not fabricate tokens or scan an API they do not own.

2. Run the scan

Pass the spec as a target, not as prose in the instruction — Strix parses OpenAPI/Swagger (.json/.yaml) and Postman collection exports directly, so the agents start from the real endpoint list:

strix -n -t ./openapi.yaml -t https://api.staging.example.com --max-budget 20 \
  --instruction "Tenant A token: <tokenA> (org 1111, user id 11, order id 501).
Tenant B token: <tokenB> (org 2222, user id 22).
Admin token: <tokenAdmin>.
Focus: BOLA across orgs (API1), function-level authz on /admin/* (API5), object property level authz on PATCH /users/{id} — both mass assignment and over-exposed fields in list responses (API3), unrestricted resource consumption (API4).
Out of scope: POST /billing/*, POST /notifications/broadcast."

• Postman instead of OpenAPI: a collection export works as a target (-t ./collection.postman_collection.json), or pull one live with -t postman://<collection-uuid> (optionally "postman://<collection-uuid>?env=<environment-uuid>"), which needs POSTMAN_API_KEY in the environment.
• Many services at once: put one target per line in a file and pass --target-list ./targets.txt, repeatable and combinable with -t.
• Add the backend source for depth: -t ./services/api -t https://api.staging.example.com. With code access the agents can reason about authorization checks and object ownership rather than inferring them from responses.
• gRPC: target the endpoint and pass the definition as a workspace file, -t https://grpc.staging.example.com --workspace-file ./service.proto. Only .json, .yaml, and .yml specs are recognized as targets, so -t ./service.proto fails with "Path exists but is not a directory".
• GraphQL: point at the GraphQL endpoint and say whether introspection is enabled; call out that you want batching/aliasing abuse, depth/complexity limits, and per-field authorization tested.
• Internal/private APIs unreachable from your machine: use the managed platform's network connector — see managed-pentesting-with-strix.
• Use --instruction-file when the credential/context block gets long, and keep tokens out of shell history and out of committed files.
• Supporting files the agents should read but not test, such as an endpoint wordlist or handwritten notes about the tenancy model: pass --workspace-file ./notes.md. Strix copies the file into /workspace. The file on your machine does not change. Add :DEST to choose the path, for example --workspace-file ./wordlist.txt:lists/wordlist.txt.

3. Verify findings

strix_runs/<run>/penetration_test_report.md first, then vulnerabilities/*.md — each contains the exact request that proved the issue. Replay it (for example, with curl) before reporting; for authorization findings, confirm the response really contains the other tenant's data rather than an empty 200.

findings.sarif uploads to GitHub code scanning; vulnerabilities.json is the structured index for ticketing.

4. Fix, re-test, and keep it tested

Remediate with fix-security-vulnerabilities-with-strix (fix the authorization check, not the single endpoint), then re-run against the same target to prove the exploit is dead. Wire it into pull-request CI with ci-security-scanning-with-strix so new endpoints get tested as they ship.