OWASP Autonomous Penetration Testing Standard (APTS)

Frontispiece


Project Information

Attribute Value
Project Name OWASP Autonomous Penetration Testing Standard (APTS)
Version 0.1.0
Release Date April 2026
License Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Repository https://github.com/OWASP/APTS
Contact [email protected]

Project Leadership

Contributors

See ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md for the full list of contributors.


Document Conventions

This standard uses RFC 2119 language:

Term Meaning
MUST Mandatory requirement. Non-compliance means the requirement is not met.
MUST NOT Absolute prohibition.
SHOULD Recommended. Deviation requires documented justification.
SHOULD NOT Not recommended. Deviation is acceptable with documented justification.
MAY Optional. Implementation is at the organization's discretion.
OPTIONAL Truly discretionary. May be included based on organizational needs.

Requirement ID Format

Requirements follow the format: APTS-[DOMAIN]-[NUMBER]

Domain Prefix Section
Scope Enforcement SE 1
Safety Controls & Impact Management SC 2
Human Oversight & Intervention HO 3
Graduated Autonomy Levels AL 4
Auditability & Reproducibility AR 5
Manipulation Resistance MR 6
Third-Party & Supply Chain Trust TP 7
Reporting RP 8

Copyright 2026 The OWASP Foundation.

Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. You may share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercial, provided you give attribution and distribute under the same license.


Version History

Version Date Notes
0.1.0 April 2026 Initial release. Eight domains, 173 tier-required requirements across three compliance tiers, plus 10 advisory practices in the appendix.