Tracks and Difficulty
Five tracks, each a family of weakness. A lab belongs to exactly one track,
set in lab.yml and mirrored by its directory under labs/.
| Track | Focus |
|---|---|
web |
injection, broken access control, auth bypass, SSRF |
binary |
memory corruption, exploitation, reverse engineering |
crypto |
weak primitives, protocol misuse, implementation faults |
network |
protocol abuse, traffic analysis, pivoting |
osint |
recon, source analysis, signature tracing |
Choose the track that names the primary weakness. A lab may touch others, but one track leads.
Grades describe what a player does, not how long it takes. Four tiers, uppercase in mono badges, lowercase in prose.
| Level | Expectation |
|---|---|
 |
one vector, minimal recon, the brief points at the surface |
 |
chained steps, some enumeration, the vector needs a decision |
 |
multiple systems or stages, custom tooling, dead ends that punish assumptions |
 |
research-level, an original technique, no public reference walkthrough |
- Pick one tier.
- Grade the action, not the clock. A slow easy lab is still easy.
- If a lab sits between two tiers, grade down. Let the solve rate correct it later.
The difficulty value is a promise to the player. Understating it wastes their time; overstating it breaks their trust.
