Four gaps, measured against the index before any of this was written.
ExploitDB and Metasploit are folded in the way nuclei templates were. ExploitDB
covers 25,066 CVEs and adds 30,327 links across 17,237 entries; Metasploit
covers 3,178 and adds 3,520 across 2,550. Together with the templates the index
goes from 101,809 CVEs carrying a PoC to 103,945. Neither archive skews recent,
which is why nuclei went first, but both are the difference between an old CVE
having nothing and having something that runs. Each keeps its own section and
its own field, and each leads the list ahead of the repositories: a module, an
entry and a template all run as they stand, without reading somebody's code.
EPSS now covers the index rather than the 4,274 CVEs a template happened to
rate. FIRST's daily feed scores 103,783 of 103,945, so a result can say how
likely a flaw is to be exploited in the next thirty days, not only that code
exists for it. It is fetched during the site build and never tracked here: a
daily rescore of 366,000 rows would be nothing but churn.
The trending tables also stop hiding what they exist to show. The star floor
excluded 1,059 of the 1,312 2026 PoC repositories pushed this quarter, and a
repository published this morning has no stars, so the newest row on the front
page was six days old. A separate lane drops the floor entirely and pays for it
with a ten day window, a cap of ten rows, and the same paperwork check the rest
of the table uses. The newest row is now hours old.
A nuclei template is a runnable check for one CVE, which makes it a proof of
concept whether or not anyone published a repository for it. Measured against
the index: 3,952 CVEs gain a template link and 858 of those had no PoC at all,
584 of the additions falling in 2024 or later. That last figure is the point.
ExploitDB carries more CVEs overall and Metasploit is better weaponised, but
both skew historical; nuclei is where coverage of a recent CVE actually shows
up first.
Templates also carry the ratings the entries never had. Severity, CVSS with
its vector, EPSS with its percentile and CWE now sit in nuclei.json for the
site to read: 4,193 of 4,418 templates state a CVSS score and 4,274 an EPSS
score. A result can finally say how bad a flaw is and how likely it is to be
used, rather than only that somebody wrote code for it.
Templates are kept in their own section and their own field. They are not
somebody's repository and should not be ranked, starred or credited as one,
but they do lead the PoC list, being the one link that runs as it stands.
The index files are also revalidated rather than reused from cache. They are
rebuilt hourly and a returning visitor was holding whatever it downloaded
first, which cost a stale index here until the copy was thrown away by hand.
The page and the README had drifted into looking like two projects. The site
now opens on the same card the README banner draws, built as markup rather
than a second copy of the image, so it fills itself from the index totals the
page already loads and cannot go stale.
Contrast was the real problem. --neutral sat at 4.12:1 against the canvas,
under the 4.5 floor, and it carried the search placeholder, the star glyph and
every separator; descriptions were rendered in the muted token at 6.15:1 while
doing the work of body copy. Descriptions move to a subtle token at 12.26:1,
muted and neutral both come up, and links go to the brighter accent at 7.49:1.
The column headers were 9.5px mono under a tenth of an em of tracking, which
no contrast ratio was going to rescue.
Known-exploited CVEs are marked in the trending table too, not only inside a
result, since which row to read first is the one thing the table could not
say. The README swaps the fire emoji for the same KEV pill, served from the
repository so every flagged row points at one cached file.
The search field no longer repeats the totals now that the hero carries them,
and keeps its slot for the match timing.
Every colour is now a Primer dark_default token. The header band, its four
capability pills and the heading above the trending table are gone, so the
search field is the first thing on the page and the switcher labels its own
table. Rows tighten to 10px, descriptions clamp to two lines, and the PoC
list loses its box for a hairline rule.
Blue is the only thing you can click. Amber means 500 stars or more and red
means known-exploited, and nothing else carries a hue: the star glyph is
dimmed at every value so the column reads as numbers rather than symbols.
The handoff's placeholder wanted an em dash. It reads "Search CVE, vendor,
product or keyword, exclude with -windows" with the middot the count line
already uses, and the six em dashes I had left in code comments are gone
too.
CISA publishes a catalogue of vulnerabilities observed being exploited in
the wild, and 1,111 of its 1,685 entries are CVEs this index already holds
PoCs for. That is the one fact a reader most wants before opening an
exploit, and it was nowhere on the page.
The weekly audit stores the catalogue, the build trims it to the CVEs the
index carries, and a result row shows a KEV chip -- with the ransomware
flag where CISA records one, which covers 352 of them. 37 KB served.
A failed fetch keeps the stored catalogue rather than dropping the badge
off every entry. The chip reuses the header pill's treatment: the palette
still spends green on things you can click and amber on star counts only.
Space Grotesk for prose, IBM Plex Mono for every identifier, and the flat
hairline-bordered surfaces from the handoff. Green marks what you can act
on and amber only ever means a star count; nothing else is coloured.
Three changes to how the same data reads. Descriptions clamp to three lines
behind an expander, so a kernel CVE no longer pushes the links people came
for below the fold. Raw URLs become owner / repo rows carrying stars and
last-commit age, ranked best first, five at a time. And an empty search box
now keeps the trending PoCs on screen with a TRENDING / RECENT toggle
rather than showing an empty page.
The search grammar, ranking and negation are unchanged.
0xMarcio