Fix digital certificates rule to not assume parsing capability. #87
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thomas-bartlett
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Pull request overview
This PR updates the digital certificates rule to reflect that AI agents cannot parse X.509 certificates without specialized tools. Instead of instructing agents to directly validate certificate properties, the rule now guides agents to flag certificates for verification and list the security checks that must be performed.
Changes:
- Updated main rule description to instruct agents to flag certificates for verification rather than parse them directly
- Modified section 2 guidance to emphasize that certificates must be flagged for validation
- Added "Verification Guidance" section with OpenSSL command for inspecting certificates
- Rewrote both examples to show flagging approach instead of claiming to perform validation
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ramraaj25
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Jan 20, 2026
skills/software-security/rules/codeguard-1-digital-certificates.md
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skills/software-security/rules/codeguard-1-digital-certificates.md
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santosomar
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Jan 20, 2026
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santosomar
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santosomar
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Thank you for addressing this!
santosomar
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Fixes the digital certificates rule which previously assumed AI agents could parse X.509 certificates to extract properties like key size and expiration. Since agents cannot decode certificate data without specialized tools, the rule now instructs agents to flag certificates for verification and list required security checks, rather than claiming to perform the validation directly.