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Configure and launch

The scan wizard runs in four steps — Assets, Configuration, Credentials, and Review — and ends with Start scan. This page covers each step in order. For the end-to-end first-scan path, see Getting started.

PhantomOps lands you on Step 1 — Assets when you open the wizard for a project. Confirm the saved URL is correct, then select Next.

Scan wizard at Step 1 Assets showing the saved target URL with Save URL and Next buttons

This step also shows the project’s assigned-plan summary. If the badge reads No plan, leave the wizard, assign a plan from the Projects page, then come back.

Step 2 is where you tune scan behavior. Six things to set:

Pick how the scanner handles potentially destructive requests (DELETEs and any state-changing POST/PUT/PATCH validation):

  • Boss mode — no interactive pop-ups. Agents may proceed with in-scope dangerous actions when needed. Scope and safety checks still apply; Boss mode just removes the manual approval prompt.
  • Safe mode — every dangerous action pauses for review (e.g., deleting a test user, dumping data). You have 5 minutes to confirm. If no one approves in that window, the action is skipped and the scan continues.

Dangerous action mode with Boss mode and Safe mode tiles side by side

The assigned plan decides which agents are included. Five agents are available:

  • Map the site structure — discovers public pages, APIs, and linked hosts.
  • Check the browser experience — tests for risky scripts, unsafe redirects, and data leaks.
  • Check the server and APIs — tests back-end and API inputs for injection, traversal, and unsafe processing.
  • Check login, roles, and permissions — looks for cross-user access, privilege escalation, and broken authorization.
  • Check known software flaws — compares your stack against known public vulnerabilities (SCA).

On Starter, four agents are included but Check login, roles, and permissions is locked. Growth and Teams unlock all five. Some plans additionally gate the Business Logic agent — see Plans for the full matrix.

Scan agents step on Growth: all five agents included

All agents are tuned to suppress false-positive findings, so you can trust what PhantomOps reports without re-triaging noise.

Choose how quickly the scanner sends requests. Lower values are quieter and safer for production systems. Higher values finish faster, but they are more likely to trigger WAF rules, rate-limit responses, or noisy application logs. The slider runs from 5 req/s (low traffic) up to 200 req/s in 5-step increments.

Rate limit slider set to 10 requests per second with Pros and Cons panels

Available on Growth and above. Upload API specs, PDFs, source files, or short notes that help the scan understand the target. Files are attached to this scan setup only.

Limits and rules:

  • Up to 10 files, 10 MB each, 30 MB total.
  • Archives (zip, tar) and binary bundles are blocked.
  • Every upload is treated as untrusted input. Files that look like prompt-injection instructions are rejected.

On Starter, supporting-document uploads are locked at launch.

Limit scan traffic to a specific time window. Pick timezone, a day preset (Mon–Fri, Mon–Sat, 7 days) or individual days, and start/end hours.

  • End time must be after start time. Overnight windows (e.g., 22:00–06:00) are not supported.
  • Toggle Scan anytime to remove the restriction.
  • On Starter, custom working-hours scheduling is unavailable; scans run anytime.

Working hours block with timezone, day chips, and start/end time selectors

Add URLs you want the scanner to skip — typically anything that would log users out, delete data, or create avoidable side effects:

https://app.example.com/admin/*
https://app.example.com/logout
  • Each line is a full http/https URL.
  • A single trailing * is supported as a wildcard. Wildcards in any other position are rejected.
  • The scan visits everything else within the saved target URL — these patterns are excluded.

Out-of-scope URL patterns textarea with two example exclusion lines

Scan wizard at Step 3 Credentials with username/password, API token, and Cookie type options

On Step 4 — Review, PhantomOps shows a final summary of the run: assets, coverage agents, dangerous-action mode, performance, working hours, credentials, supporting documents, the assigned plan, and the report depth. Confirm everything looks right, then select Start scan.

Scan wizard at Step 4 Review with the launch summary and Start scan button

After Start scan, PhantomOps shows a Scan started confirmation and the live scan view becomes available. See Getting started → Watch the scan for the live progress, sidebar Active Scan card, and scan-state reference.

  • Getting started — first-time end-to-end walkthrough.
  • Credentials — full credentials reference, including SSO and MFA.
  • Plans — what each plan tier includes (agents, working hours, supporting docs, report depth).
  • Approvals — review dangerous-action approvals when running in Safe mode.