Semia: Auditing Agent Skills via Constraint-Guided Representation Synthesis
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent threats, guardrails and governance
Abstract (arXiv)
An agent skill is a configuration package that equips an LLM-driven agent with a concrete capability, such as reading email, executing shell commands, or signing blockchain transactions. Each skill is a hybrid artifact-a structured half declares executable interfaces, while a prose half dictates when and how those interfaces fire-and the prose is reinterpreted probabilistically on every invocation. Conventional static analyzers parse the structured half but ignore the prose; LLM-based tools read the prose but cannot reproducibly prove that a tainted input reaches a high-impact sink. We present Semia, a static auditor for agent skills. Semia lifts each skill into the Skill Description Language (SDL), a Datalog fact base that captures LLM-triggered actions, prose-defined conditions, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints. Synthesizing a fact base that is both structurally sound and semantically faithful to the original prose is the central challenge; we address it with Constraint-Guided Representation Synthesis (CGRS), a propose-verify-evaluate loop that refines LLM candidates until convergence. Security properties (e.g., indirect injection, secret leakage, confused deputies, unguarded sinks, etc.) over an agent skill can then be reduced to Datalog reachability queries. We evaluate Semia on 13,728 real-world skills from public marketplaces. Semia renders all of them auditable and finds that more than half carry at least one critical semantic risk. On a stratified sample of 541 expert-labeled skills, Semia achieves 97.7% recall and an F1 of 90.6%, substantially outperforming signature-based scanners and LLM baselines.
Key facts. Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 20 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 May 2026.
Builds on
20 of 46 references.
Closest ancestors · 7
Same direction, newest first
- 2026Taming Various Privilege Escalation in LLM-Based Agent Systems: A Mandatory Access Control Framework17 Jan
- 2025Prompt Injection Attack to Tool Selection in LLM Agents28 Apr
- 2025Defeating Prompt Injections by Design24 Mar
- 2025AgentSpec: Customizable Runtime Enforcement for Safe and Reliable LLM Agents24 Mar
- 2025RTBAS: Defending LLM Agents Against Prompt Injection and Privacy Leakage13 Feb
- 2024Agent Security Bench (ASB): Formalizing and Benchmarking Attacks and Defenses in LLM-based Agents3 Oct
- 2024IsolateGPT: An Execution Isolation Architecture for LLM-Based Agentic Systems8 Mar
Other references · 13
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,072
- 2023Not what you've signed up for: Compromising Real-World LLM-Integrated Applications with Indirect Prompt Injectioncited by 1,339
- 2023Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIscited by 1,302
- 2023Formalizing and Benchmarking Prompt Injection Attacks and Defensescited by 328
- 2024StruQ: Defending Against Prompt Injection with Structured Queriescited by 325
- 2024Defending Against Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks With Spotlightingcited by 233
- 2025DataSentinel: A Game-Theoretic Detection of Prompt Injection Attackscited by 124
- 2024ToolSword: Unveiling Safety Issues of Large Language Models in Tool Learning Across Three Stagescited by 77
- 2023LLM Platform Security: Applying a Systematic Evaluation Framework to OpenAI's ChatGPT Pluginscited by 49
- 2024PropertyGPT: LLM-driven Formal Verification of Smart Contracts through Retrieval-Augmented Property Generationcited by 36
- 2018Vandal: A Scalable Security Analysis Framework for Smart Contractscited by 18
- 2025Chasing Shadows: Pitfalls in LLM Security Researchcited by 10
1 more
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 5.
5 papers.
- 2026MalSkillBench: A Runtime-Verified Benchmark of Malicious Agent Skillscited by 14
- 2026AgentTrap: Measuring Runtime Trust Failures in Third-Party Agent Skillscited by 9
- 2026VIGIL: Runtime Enforcement of Behavioral Specifications in AI Agent Skillscited by 8
- 2026Runtime Skill Audit: Targeted Runtime Probing for Agent Skill Securitycited by 2
- 2026Towards a Systems Foundation for Agentic Skills: Architecture, Lifecycle, and Securitycited by 0
- 2026Towards a Systems Foundation for Agentic Skills: Architecture, Lifecycle, and Security30 Aug 2026
- 2026VIGIL: Runtime Enforcement of Behavioral Specifications in AI Agent Skills25 Jun 2026
- 2026Runtime Skill Audit: Targeted Runtime Probing for Agent Skill Security10 Jun 2026
- 2026MalSkillBench: A Runtime-Verified Benchmark of Malicious Agent Skills5 Jun 2026
- 2026AgentTrap: Measuring Runtime Trust Failures in Third-Party Agent Skills13 May 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026SLBench: Evaluating How LLM Agents Follow Logical Relations in Skills
- 2026Ignorance or Incompetence? Constructing Knowledge-Gated, Verifiable Tasks for LLM Agents
- 2026TraceCompiler: Skill-Guided Mining and Compilation of LLM Agent Traces into Mostly Deterministic Workflows
- 2026Skills as Verifiable Artifacts: A Trust Schema and a Biconditional Correctness Criterion for Human-in-the-Loop Agent Runtimes
- 2026SkillAtlas: An Attack Trace Library for Agent Skills
- 2026SkillRevise: Improving LLM-Authored Agent Skills via Trace-Conditioned Skill Revision
- 2026Evidence-Calibrated Runtime Reconstruction for Agent Skills Across Heterogeneous Coding Agents
- 2026Methods for Formal Verification of Agent Skills: Three Layers Toward a Mechanically Checkable Capability-Containment Proof