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Cost & Safety

An autonomous swarm is only useful if you can leave it running without watching it. Pentest Swarm AI gives you four independent guardrails that make that safe: a spend cap that never overspends, a killswitch that stops a run gracefully, a safe mode that blocks destructive commands, and scope enforcement that can't be bypassed. This page covers each, then how they combine.

Spend cap (--budget <usd>)​

A hard per-run USD cap on LLM spend. Pass it on scan, or set it in the launcher's Spend cap field.

pentestswarm scan target --scope target --swarm --budget 5

How it works:

  • A watcher tracks the live LLM cost meter as the run proceeds. The moment cumulative spend reaches the cap, it winds the campaign down gracefully — it writes CAMPAIGN_COMPLETE so the report still generates on the partial findings already gathered. Nothing is left half-written; you get a report for what the swarm found before it hit the ceiling.
  • The meter is priced at the costliest model in the mix. That means the cap errs toward stopping slightly early rather than late — so a run never overspends the number you set.
  • --budget 0 means no cap.
  • Local providers (Ollama, LM Studio) have no cost, so the cap is n/a. In the launcher the field shows "no cost — local model" for them.

In the launcher the Spend cap field has a minimum of $2 on paid providers, and you adjust it with ←/→.

Worked example
pentestswarm scan target --scope target --swarm --budget 5

This run will stop and produce a report the instant cumulative LLM spend reaches $5 — and because the meter prices at the most expensive model in the routing mix, actual spend lands at or just under $5, never over.

Together AI stays cheap by default

The together provider runs in multi-model mode and keeps a typical run near the ~$1 single-model baseline, so a $5 cap leaves comfortable headroom. See Providers.

Killswitch​

You can stop a running campaign at any time, and it always stops gracefully — winding the swarm down and still writing the report on whatever it has found so far.

  • Web dashboard — a red STOP button. It POSTs to /api/stop, which halts the run gracefully.
  • Terminal TUI — press q or Ctrl-C.

Either way you get a clean shutdown and a report, not a truncated process. See the Dashboard page for where the STOP button lives.

Safe mode (--safe-mode)​

Blocks destructive command tokens — rm, DROP, kill, chmod, and similar — before they're executed. If the swarm's reasoning ever proposes a command containing one, it's refused rather than run.

pentestswarm scan target --scope target --swarm --safe-mode

This is required by programs that disallow risky automated actions — many bug-bounty programs forbid anything that could modify or damage the target. Turn it on whenever the rules of engagement demand non-destructive testing.

Scope enforcement (--scope)​

--scope declares the authorized scope — CIDRs and/or domains, comma-separated. It is enforced at both the tool layer and the executor, so an in-scope constraint is not bypassable by an agent that "decides" to reach further.

pentestswarm scan example.com --scope example.com,api.example.com,10.0.0.0/24 --swarm
  • Non-lab scans require a scope. If you omit it, scope defaults to the target itself.
  • Bundled labs don't need it — the lab is the scope.
Scope is a guardrail, not authorization

Scope enforcement stops the swarm from wandering off-target. It does not grant you permission to test anything. You are still responsible for pointing the swarm only at systems you're authorized to test. See Security & Responsible Use.

Putting it together​

These four controls are independent, and together they make an unattended run safe:

  • --scope bounds where the swarm can act — nowhere outside the authorized targets, enforced twice over.
  • --safe-mode bounds what it can do — no destructive commands, ever.
  • --budget bounds how much it can spend — a hard ceiling that stops the run and still delivers a report.
  • The killswitch lets you end it whenever you want — cleanly, with a report.

A run launched with a correct scope, safe mode on, and a budget set is one you can start and walk away from: it will stay on-target, avoid anything destructive, stop itself before it costs more than you allowed, and hand you a report either way.

export PENTESTSWARM_ORCHESTRATOR_API_KEY=your-key
pentestswarm scan example.com \
  --scope example.com \
  --safe-mode \
  --budget 10 \
  --mode bugbounty \
  --swarm --follow