pyghidra-lite

Token-efficient MCP server for Ghidra-based reverse engineering. Analyze ELF, Mach-O, and PE binaries with Swift, Objective-C, and Hermes support.

Quick Start

1. Prerequisites

JDK 21+ and Ghidra 11.x are required.

# macOS
brew install openjdk@21
brew install --cask ghidra

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install openjdk-21-jdk
# Download Ghidra from https://ghidra-sre.org

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S jdk21-openjdk
yay -S ghidra

Ghidra at /opt/ghidra or ~/ghidra is found automatically. Set GHIDRA_INSTALL_DIR only for non-standard paths.

2. Install pyghidra-lite

pip install pyghidra-lite

3. Add to Claude Code

Create .mcp.json in your project (or ~/.claude.json for global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "pyghidra-lite"
    }
  }
}

4. Use it

You: Analyze the binary at /path/to/binaries/app

Claude: [calls load, info, code...]

Installation

PyPI (recommended)

pip install pyghidra-lite

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S python-pyghidra-lite

From source

git clone https://github.com/johnzfitch/pyghidra-lite
cd pyghidra-lite
pip install -e .

MCP Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["pyghidra-lite"]
    }
  }
}

uvx auto-installs pyghidra-lite from PyPI on first run. Ghidra is auto-detected; set GHIDRA_INSTALL_DIR in env if needed:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["pyghidra-lite"],
      "env": {
        "GHIDRA_INSTALL_DIR": "/path/to/ghidra"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Create .mcp.json in your project (or ~/.claude.json for global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "pyghidra-lite"
    }
  }
}

Direct mode (skip proxy)

For single-session use or debugging, run the server directly:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "pyghidra-lite",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

With explicit Ghidra path

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "pyghidra-lite",
      "args": [
        "serve",
        "--ghidra-dir", "/path/to/ghidra"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restrict to specific paths

By default, pyghidra-lite can load binaries from any path (the MCP client handles permissions). Use --restrict-path to lock down access:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pyghidra-lite": {
      "command": "pyghidra-lite",
      "args": [
        "serve",
        "--restrict-path", "/home/user/binaries",
        "--restrict-path", "/opt/targets"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Tools (8)

pyghidra-lite provides 8 consolidated tools that auto-detect format (ELF/Mach-O/PE) and language (Swift/ObjC/Hermes):

Tool	Purpose	Key Parameters
load	Import and analyze binary	path, profile?, fresh?, bootstrap?, bootstrap_mode?
delete	Remove binary and cancel jobs	name
binaries	List binaries + job status	jobs?, rank_sources?
info	Binary overview	binary, detail? (summary/full/format/sections/entropy)
functions	List/search functions	binary, query?, type? (all/swift/objc/imports/exports)
code	Decompile or disassemble	binary, target, what? (decompile/asm), cfg?
xrefs	References and call graphs	binary, target, direction?, depth?, diff?
search	Find strings, bytes, symbols	binary, query, type?, mode?, bg?

Examples

# Import and analyze
load("/path/to/binary", profile="fast")

# Version-track from a prior build, including synthetic IDs for unnamed code
load("/path/to/new.bin", profile="deep", bootstrap="old.bin", bootstrap_mode="all")

# Get overview with full triage
info("mybinary", detail="full")

# List Swift functions
functions("mybinary", type="swift")

# Decompile with CFG
code("mybinary", "main", cfg=True)

# Search strings in background
search("mybinary", ["password", "api_key"], bg=True)

# Get cross-references
xrefs("mybinary", "malloc", depth=2)

Auto-Detection

All tools automatically detect:

• Format: ELF, Mach-O, PE
• Language: Swift, Objective-C, Hermes/React Native
• Runtime: Bun, Node.js, Electron, PyInstaller

Use the type and detail parameters to access format/language-specific features.

Bootstrap Modes

• bootstrap_mode="named": transfer only meaningful source names (default).
• bootstrap_mode="all": also assign stable synthetic labels to source FUN_* functions during transfer, which is useful for large version-to-version bootstrap workflows where uniqueness matters more than semantics.

Analysis Profiles

Profile	Use Case
fast	Quick triage, disables 20 slow analyzers (default)
default	Balanced, full Ghidra analysis
deep	Thorough analysis for obfuscated code

The server defaults to fast to stay within MCP timeout limits. Use load(fresh=True) to run deeper analysis when needed:

# Default import uses fast profile
load("/path/to/binary")

# Re-analyze with deep profile
load("/path/to/binary", profile="deep", fresh=True)

Token Efficiency

pyghidra-lite is designed for minimal token usage:

• Compact output by default - functions(binary, type="all") returns minimal {name, addr} pairs
• Opt-in detail - use info(detail="full"), code(cfg=True), or richer type/what modes only when needed
• Progress reporting - large imports report progress every 10% or 60s
• Truncated strings - long strings capped at 500 chars

Architecture

By default, pyghidra-lite runs as a lightweight stdio proxy (~10MB) that forwards to a persistent shared HTTP backend (~500MB JVM). Multiple sessions share a single JVM instead of each spawning their own.

Claude Code session 1 ──stdio──> proxy ──┐
Claude Code session 2 ──stdio──> proxy ──┼──HTTP──> shared backend (1 JVM)
Claude Code session 3 ──stdio──> proxy ──┘        localhost:19101

The proxy auto-starts the backend on first use and the backend auto-exits after 30 minutes of idle. A file lock prevents concurrent proxy starts from spawning duplicate backends.

Command	What it does
pyghidra-lite	Stdio proxy (default) -- auto-starts backend
pyghidra-lite serve	Direct stdio server (1 JVM per session)
pyghidra-lite serve -t streamable-http	Start persistent HTTP backend manually
pyghidra-lite stop	Stop the shared backend

Set PYGHIDRA_LITE_NO_AUTOSTART=1 to disable auto-start (useful with systemd).

Multi-Agent Support

Each binary gets its own Ghidra project, enabling:

• Parallel analysis of different binaries
• Shared results across agents
• Persistent analysis (survives restarts)
• Content-addressed storage (same binary = same analysis)

Projects stored in ~/.local/share/pyghidra-lite/projects/.

Links

• PyPI Package
• AUR Package
• MCP Registry
• Issue Tracker
• Contributing
• Security Policy
• Changelog

License

MIT