Implementation:Promptfoo Promptfoo applyStrategies

Knowledge Sources	Promptfoo Red Team Strategies
Domains	Security_Testing, Adversarial_ML
Last Updated	2026-02-14 08:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete tool for applying attack delivery strategies to transform base adversarial test cases, provided by the Promptfoo red team framework.

Description

The applyStrategies function iterates over configured strategies, loading each strategy module and applying its transformation to the base test cases. It tracks generation statistics per strategy and handles both built-in strategies (from the Strategies registry) and custom file-based strategies.

Usage

This function is called internally by synthesize after plugin-based test generation. It is not typically called directly.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: promptfoo
• File: src/redteam/index.ts
• Lines: L350-567

Signature

async function applyStrategies(
  testCases: TestCaseWithPlugin[],
  strategies: RedteamStrategyObject[],
  injectVar: string,
  excludeTargetOutputFromAgenticAttackGeneration?: boolean,
): Promise<{
  testCases: TestCaseWithPlugin[];
  strategyResults: Record<string, { requested: number; generated: number }>;
}>

Import

// Internal function within src/redteam/index.ts
// Not exported directly; called by synthesize()

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
testCases	TestCaseWithPlugin[]	Yes	Base test cases from plugin generation
strategies	RedteamStrategyObject[]	Yes	Strategies to apply (e.g., base64, jailbreak, goat)
injectVar	string	Yes	The variable name where attacks are injected

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
testCases	TestCaseWithPlugin[]	Combined base + strategy-transformed test cases
strategyResults	Record<string, { requested, generated }>	Per-strategy generation statistics

Usage Examples

Strategy Application Flow (Internal)

// Called within synthesize():
const { testCases: allTestCases, strategyResults } = await applyStrategies(
  pluginTestCases,
  [{ id: 'base64' }, { id: 'jailbreak' }, { id: 'goat' }],
  'query',
);

// allTestCases now contains original + base64-encoded + jailbreak + GOAT variants

Related Pages

Implements Principle

• Principle:Promptfoo_Promptfoo_Strategy_Application