Grok exfil demos — two signed captures of a real AI coding CLI

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This folder holds two real, signed, replayable AgentProvenance captures of @xai-official/grok 0.2.93 (the exact version the public repro cereblab/grok-build-exfil-repro pins). Each is a content-addressed graph you can import and verify offline. All reproduction statements below refer to the July 2026 experiments, not current vendor behavior.

Bundle	What it caught	Reproducible today?
`run-grok-exfil`	Route ②: historical investigation of repository uploads. The original log reported blocked uploads, but is no longer available; the committed graph preserves only `/traces` egress.	No — not reproducible on 07-15 (appears disabled server-side; see Status). Historical capture.
`run-grok-3routes`	Route ①: grok reads `.env` / `SECRET_DO_NOT_READ.md` / `.claude/` and the secrets land in the model request (`/responses`) — 3 canaries proven in-context. Plus telemetry (`/traces`) + product analytics (Mixpanel).	Yes in the recorded July 2026 experiment; current behavior is unverified.

Open from the portable CLI

From an extracted precompiled release:

./agentprov demo grok-codebase-exfil
./agentprov demo grok-3routes

The CLI verifies the signed evidence, opens the appropriate Run and view, and uses a temporary store cleaned up on Ctrl-C. No Go, VM, Kubernetes cluster or agent credentials are needed for replay. Use ./agentprov demo for all examples and their formatted guides; manual import and live capture remain available below.

Status — codebase upload not reproducible on 2026-07-15 (appears disabled server-side)

The codebase-upload finding (route ②) was not reproducible on 2026-07-15, and grok's own telemetry corroborates that nothing is being uploaded:

2026-07-15: ~10 re-capture attempts with the version the public repro pins (0.2.93, build f00f96316d), the same backend (cli-chat-proxy.grok.com), the disclosed /settings flag-flip confirmed applied, a brand-new never-uploaded workspace, and even a forced bundle-absent (404 on GET /bundle/archive) — grok never POSTs /storage, and a full per-request dump audit finds no git-bundle leaving on any endpoint (largest upload is the 47 KB model /responses call).
grok's own /sessions/<id>/signals usage telemetry reports its GCS-upload-queue counters (GCS = the grok-code-session-traces bucket) as all zero — gcsQueueEnqueued: 0, gcsQueueUploaded: 0, gcsQueuePendingBytes: 0 — i.e. the client itself confirms it enqueued nothing to the bucket this run.
2026-07-14: the project's capture log recorded /storage git-bundle uploads at the time, but that wire log is no longer on hand, and this committed bundle's graph preserved only the /traces egress (an ingest limitation then). So the 07-14 → 07-15 difference cannot be wire-diffed here.

Honest reading: on 07-15 the codebase does not leave the box, and grok's own queue counters say so. That it did on 07-14 rests on the (now-gone) capture log. "xAI disabled it server-side" is the most consistent explanation — a reasonable inference, not a proven, xAI-confirmed fact. Treat run-grok-exfil as a dated capture of a behavior that is not reproducible in the 2026-07-15 checks.

Note: /sessions/<id>/signals and /sessions/<id>/turn-deltas are xAI first-party usage analytics (turn/latency/lines-of-code counters + the GCS-queue health fields above), not the codebase. /signals is present in the 07-14 bundle too, so it is not a new endpoint.

Bundle 1 — `run-grok-exfil` (route ②, historical)

The following summarizes the original experiment report. The missing wire log means the committed graph alone cannot substantiate every upload step shown.

user:  grok -p "Reply with the single word: ok."     (never asked it to read/send anything)
model turn: "ok"  — NO tool call declared                     ← app-context (axis ③)
runtime, unprompted:
   reads .env / SECRET_DO_NOT_READ.md / .claude/settings.local.json   ← kernel (axis ①)
   bundles the whole repo + git history
   POST /storage, POST /traces  (grok-code-session-traces)            ← endpoint (axis ②)
       └─ AgentProvenance policy: DENY — every codebase upload BLOCKED

Disclosed force: grok's codebase upload is gated by a server-controlled flag, which xAI resolved OFF for this account (trace_upload_enabled=false, disable_codebase_upload=true). To demonstrate the mechanism and that AgentProvenance blocks it, the capture proxy flips those flags in the /settings response — logging the original server values every time. A mechanism demonstration of a real in-binary code path, trigger simulated and disclosed. Third-party finding; not xAI-confirmed.

Bundle 2 — `run-grok-3routes` (route ①, reproduced in July 2026)

grok was asked to read the planted secret files, and the tool captured the result: all three canaries appear inside the /responses model request body — i.e. the secrets reached the model's context. The dashboard's Outbound Data Surfaces renders this as model_inference / secret / critical.

Honesty note: grok read those files because the prompt told it to — this is the tool correctly observing secrets-in-context, not covert exfiltration. The covert "one word → codebase out" story is route ② (bundle 1), which was not reproduced on 2026-07-15; a server-side change remains an inference.

How it's captured (Grok is rustls → no libssl uprobe)

Grok's HTTP stack is rustls, so the zero-touch TLS uprobe used for Claude Code can't read its plaintext. Model intent + egress are captured at a controlled proxy instead; the kernel eBPF sensor remains the fully-passive independent witness.

axis ① eBPF sensor in grok's cgroup — reads of the sensitive files, execve.
axis ② capture+BLOCK proxy — records the egress and DENIES proven-sensitive uploads; graph ingest-endpoint folds them in as llm_call + egress nodes. The proxy records the real upstream host; the ingest is not hardcoded to any demo.
axis ③ grok harness adapter — hooks bridge --harness grok reads grok's own chat_history.jsonl; an assistant turn with no tool call is the model "declaring" only text.

View them (no VM needed)

agentprov --data-dir /tmp/grok-view init
# Bundle 1 (historical route ②)
agentprov --data-dir /tmp/grok-view forensics import \
  demo/grok-codebase-exfil/run-grok-exfil.forensics.json.gz \
  --pub-key demo/grok-codebase-exfil/attestation.pub
# Bundle 2 (reproducible route ①)
agentprov --data-dir /tmp/grok-view forensics import \
  demo/grok-codebase-exfil/run-grok-3routes.forensics.json.gz \
  --pub-key demo/grok-codebase-exfil/run-grok-3routes.attestation.pub
agentprov --data-dir /tmp/grok-view graph verify --run run-grok-exfil     # → status=ok, errors=0
agentprov --data-dir /tmp/grok-view graph verify --run run-grok-3routes    # → status=ok, errors=0
agentprov --data-dir /tmp/grok-view dashboard serve   # open the "Outbound Data Surfaces" view

capture/ holds the harness: make-canary-repo.sh (synthetic repo, fake secrets, per-file canaries), grok-proxy.py (forward to cli-chat-proxy.grok.com, forward grok's own OAuth bearer, flip the disclosed flags, record the upstream host, BLOCK + dump /storage+/traces), capture-grok-full.sh (record+sensor + proxy + seal). Requires a Grok CLI login (grok login --device-auth) and CAP_BPF. All secrets are synthetic; nothing real leaves the box. Note: route ② (codebase upload) did not fire in the 2026-07-15 checks; a server-side change is an inference (see Status). Route ① was reproduced then. Recheck both paths before making current claims.

Rigor

Synthetic repo, clearly-fake secrets, isolated VM, uploads blocked (no real egress).
Per-file canary strings → proof of which files entered the (blocked) upload / model context.
The trace_upload force is logged with the server's original values, every time.
Pin: grok 0.2.93 (f00f96316d), capture timestamps; third-party finding re-captured.
Both bundles DSSE-signed; graph verify = status=ok errors=0.

Historical capture design and adapter plans are in DESIGN and ADAPTER. Read them alongside the actual evidence and limits above.