Hundreds of tools. Endless scripts. A million “must-have” guides.

If you’ve ever opened your laptop and felt lost before you even start hunting — you’re not alone.

The truth: you don’t need noise. You don’t need 50 tools. You only need three core things that actually produce results, day after day.

This article strips it down. No fluff — just the essentials that matter and how to use them.

1) A Platform (so your reports count)

You can find bugs in the wild, but if you don’t have a proper outlet for them, they’re just… notes in a notebook.

A platform is your legal bridge to organizations. It triages your report, validates it, and (yes) pays you when it’s valid. Without a platform you’re shouting into the void.

Platforms worth knowing: HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti. My personal recommendation for starters: YesWeHack — especially because of YesWeHack Dojo. Dojo gives you realistic practice challenges and a path to private invites. Solve a few puzzles there, and private targets start appearing in your dashboard.

Why this matters

• You get proper triage and feedback.
• You build a reputation that leads to private invites.
• You avoid “anonymous email” dead-ends.

2) A Proxy Tool (you must see the traffic)

If you can’t see requests and responses, you’re flying blind. A proxy is how you become visible to the app.

Industry staples:

• Burp Suite — the classic, full-featured choice.
• Caido — a modern, lightweight proxy that I use often.

What a proxy gives you

• Intercept and modify requests.
• Replay flows.
• Inspect headers, cookies, and raw responses.
• Hook up plugins for scanning and automation.

 pick a proxy and master it. Without it you’re clicking; with it you’re hacking.

3) A Lean Linux Toolkit (the real power)

Tools don’t make hunters — commands do. A minimal Linux toolset lets you turn noisy outputs into action.

Why Linux?

• One environment you can SSH into (VPS).
• Scripts and pipes make quick work of data.
• Stable long-running sessions (with tmux).

Key habits

• Use a VPS so your environment is consistent across devices.
• Use tmux to keep sessions alive when you close your laptop.
• Learn a handful of commands and chain them together.

Essential commands (the ones I always use)

tmux (keep sessions alive)

• Start a session: tmux
• Detach: Ctrl-b d
• Reattach: tmux attach

curl (raw HTTP requests)

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" https://api.yeswehack.com/user
curl -X POST -d "username=admin&password=test" https://target.com/login
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"id":1}' https://api.target.com/endpoint

grep (find the noise)

grep -i "password" urls.txt
grep -iE "admin|secret|key" outputs.txt
grep -Eo "Bearer [A-Za-z0-9\._-]+" responses.txt

jq (make JSON readable)

# list program slugs
curl -s https://api.yeswehack.com/programs | jq -r '.items[].slug'

# programs with high bounties
curl -s https://api.yeswehack.com/programs \
  | jq -r '.items[] | select(.bounty_reward_max > 2000) | .title' 

xargs (scale simple tasks)

cat slugs.txt | xargs -I % curl -s "https://api.yeswehack.com/programs/%" | jq '.' cat subs-live.txt | xargs -I % ./custom-check % 

Putting them together

curl -s https://api.yeswehack.com/programs \
  | jq -r '.items[].slug' \
  | xargs -I % curl -s "https://api.yeswehack.com/programs/%" \
  | grep -i "bounty" 

That combo — curl → jq → xargs → grep — gives you powerful, repeatable actions without a heavy GUI.

What matters most

Tools are noise if you don’t have a foundation.

Three essentials:

1. A platform — your outlet and ladder to private invites. (YesWeHack Dojo is a shortcut to private targets.)
2. A proxy — see and control the app traffic (Burp or Caido).
3. A Linux toolkit — tmux, curl, jq, xargs, grep. Chain them and you’ll outpace anyone with a laundry list of GUIs.

If you focus on these, everything else becomes optional. Master the basics, build consistency, and the results will compound.