About
Garak is an open-source LLM vulnerability scanner built to help developers, researchers, and enterprises assess the security posture of large language models and AI systems. Its full name—Generative AI Red-teaming & Assessment Kit—reflects its mission: provide a rigorous, extensible framework for probing AI systems against known and emerging attack vectors. Licensed under Apache 2.0 and backed by NVIDIA, garak is freely available and actively developed by both NVIDIA engineers and the broader open-source community. It ships with dozens of plugins and thousands of curated adversarial prompts covering categories such as prompt injection, jailbreaks, hallucination, bias, and data leakage, making it one of the most comprehensive LLM security toolkits available. Garak is primarily a command-line tool, making it easy to integrate into CI/CD pipelines, security workflows, and automated testing environments. Extensive documentation is available via the user guide and reference docs, and developers are active on the official Discord for community support. Many companies have adopted garak as an industry-standard tool for pre-deployment security audits and ongoing red-teaming of AI products. Whether you're a researcher exploring novel LLM vulnerabilities, a developer hardening a chatbot, or a security team auditing enterprise AI infrastructure, garak provides the depth and flexibility needed to surface real risks before they reach production.
Key Features
- Comprehensive Vulnerability Probing: Thousands of adversarial prompts spanning prompt injection, jailbreaks, hallucination, bias, and data-leakage attack categories.
- Extensible Plugin Architecture: Dozens of built-in plugins with a modular design that allows the community and enterprises to add custom probes and detectors.
- CLI-First Design: Friendly command-line interface that integrates cleanly into CI/CD pipelines, security workflows, and automated testing environments.
- NVIDIA-Backed & Community-Driven: Actively maintained by NVIDIA engineers and an open-source community, ensuring rapid updates as new LLM vulnerabilities emerge.
- Apache 2.0 Open-Source License: Completely free to use and modify, lowering the security poverty line so any team can audit their AI systems without licensing costs.
Use Cases
- Security teams running pre-deployment audits on LLM-powered products to identify vulnerabilities before they reach end users.
- AI researchers probing novel language models for weaknesses as part of responsible disclosure and safety research.
- Developers integrating automated LLM security checks into CI/CD pipelines to catch regressions after model updates.
- Enterprises red-teaming internal chatbots and knowledge-base assistants to ensure compliance with security and data-privacy requirements.
- Academic institutions and students studying adversarial AI and LLM safety with a hands-on, open-source toolkit.
Pros
- Industry-Standard Tool: Consistently recommended in independent security research and widely adopted by enterprises as the go-to LLM red-teaming framework.
- Free and Open Source: Apache 2.0 license means zero cost and full transparency—ideal for startups, researchers, and large enterprises alike.
- Actively Maintained: NVIDIA backing plus an engaged open-source community ensures regular updates, fast issue responses, and growing plugin coverage.
Cons
- CLI-Only Interface: No graphical UI; users must be comfortable with command-line tooling and Python environments to get started.
- Steep Learning Curve for New Users: The breadth of plugins and configuration options can be overwhelming without thorough reading of the documentation.
- No Hosted SaaS Version: Requires local installation and compute resources; there is no managed cloud service for teams that prefer a turnkey solution.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is garak?
Garak stands for Generative AI Red-teaming & Assessment Kit. It is an open-source command-line tool that scans large language models and LLM-based applications for security vulnerabilities such as prompt injection, jailbreaks, hallucination, and data leakage.
How do I install garak?
Garak can be installed via pip (`pip install garak`). Full installation instructions and prerequisites are covered in the official user guide at garak.ai.
Is garak free to use?
Yes. Garak is released under the Apache 2.0 open-source license, making it completely free to use, modify, and redistribute for both personal and commercial purposes.
Who maintains garak?
Garak is backed and primarily developed by NVIDIA, with active contributions from an open-source community. Issues and pull requests are responded to on GitHub, and the development team is accessible via the official garak Discord server.
What types of LLM vulnerabilities does garak test for?
Garak tests for a wide range of vulnerabilities including prompt injection, jailbreak attempts, hallucination tendencies, toxic content generation, bias, and sensitive data leakage, using thousands of curated adversarial prompts and dozens of configurable plugins.
