Structural & Meta-Level Tactics
Techniques that exploit how the model processes context, instructions, or its own rules.
These go deeper than prompt-level tactics. Instead of manipulating what you ask, they manipulate how the model thinks about what you ask—targeting the reasoning process, the instruction hierarchy, or the safety mechanisms themselves.
Techniques
| Technique | What it does |
|---|---|
| ICL Exploitation | Manipulate in-context learning with crafted examples |
| Control Plane Confusion | Blur the line between system instructions and user input |
| Meta-Rule Manipulation | Target the model's understanding of its own constraints |
| Capability Inversion | Turn helpful capabilities against intended use |
| Cognitive Load | Overwhelm the model's attention or reasoning |
| Defense Evasion | Bypass safety classifiers and filters |
When to use structural tactics
Use these when:
- Prompt-level tactics are hitting consistent, well-trained refusals
- The target has a system prompt you can probe or inject into
- You want to attack the safety mechanism itself, not just evade it
- The model uses few-shot examples or retrieval-augmented generation
Move to infrastructure tactics when:
- The target is an agent with tool access
- You can poison data sources the model consumes
- The attack surface extends beyond the chat interface
Decision framework
Structural tactics require understanding the target's architecture. Before using these, complete target analysis to understand what context the model has access to.
For combining structural with prompt-level tactics, see Composition.