Mar 21, 2026

Structural Code Monitors: Graph Matching Networks on Code Property Graphs for Topology-Aware Trusted Monitoring

tanzeel shaikh, shubham gupta

We built a non-LLM trusted monitor that compares Code Property Graphs of untrusted code against trusted references

using a Graph Matching Network with cross-graph attention. On 200 trajectories from Apps-Control-Arena, our

0.7M-parameter GNN achieves 0.946 AUC and 70% recall at the 2% FPR audit budget. Even when LLMs receive the same

reference code (diff-based prompt), their false positive rates spike to 46%, making them unusable at low FPR

thresholds. The GNN's structural pooling separates localized backdoor insertions from algorithmic differences — a

distinction text-based monitors cannot make. Cross-graph attention weights additionally produce node-level audit

trails identifying which code lines triggered detection.

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Cite this work

@misc {

title={

(HckPrj) Structural Code Monitors: Graph Matching Networks on Code Property Graphs for Topology-Aware Trusted Monitoring

},

author={

tanzeel shaikh, shubham gupta

},

date={

3/21/26

},

organization={Apart Research},

note={Research submission to the research sprint hosted by Apart.},

howpublished={https://apartresearch.com}

}

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This work was done during one weekend by research workshop participants and does not represent the work of Apart Research.
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