IDA MCP Server

A headless IDA Pro MCP server built on idalib. Exposes IDA Pro's binary analysis capabilities over the Model Context Protocol (MCP), letting LLMs drive IDA Pro for reverse engineering tasks. Supports multiple simultaneous databases through a supervisor/worker architecture.

Note: This is a standalone server, not an IDA plugin. It uses idalib (IDA as a library) to run IDA's analysis engine headlessly — no IDA GUI needs to be running. You just need IDA Pro 9+ installed on the same machine.

Requirements

• IDA Pro 9+ with a valid license (including Hex-Rays decompiler for decompilation tools)
• Python 3.12+
• uv package manager (recommended) or pip
• macOS, Windows, or Linux

Installation

uv tool install ida-mcp

Or with pip:

pip install ida-mcp

The idapro package is loaded at runtime directly from your local IDA Pro installation — no extra setup steps or environment variables are needed if IDA is installed in a standard location.

From source

git clone https://github.com/jtsylve/ida-mcp && cd ida-mcp
uv sync

Or with pip:

git clone https://github.com/jtsylve/ida-mcp && cd ida-mcp
pip install -e .

Finding IDA Pro

At startup, the server looks for your IDA Pro installation in the following order:

1. IDADIR environment variable — checked first; set this if IDA is in a non-standard location.
2. IDA's own config file — Paths.ida-install-dir in ~/.idapro/ida-config.json (macOS/Linux) or %APPDATA%\Hex-Rays\IDA Pro\ida-config.json (Windows). If the IDAUSR environment variable is set, it is used as the config directory instead. This is the same config file IDA itself uses.
3. Platform-specific default paths:

| Platform | Default search paths | |----------|---------------------| | macOS | /Applications/IDA Professional *.app/Contents/MacOS | | Windows | C:\Program Files\IDA Professional 9.3, C:\Program Files\IDA Pro 9.3, and their Program Files (x86) equivalents | | Linux | /opt/ida-pro-9.3, /opt/idapro-9.3, /opt/ida-9.3, ~/ida-pro-9.3, ~/idapro-9.3 |

If the server can't find IDA, you'll get a clear error message telling you to set IDADIR.

Usage

Stdio transport (default)

uvx ida-mcp

Or if installed with pip:

ida-mcp

Running without installing

You can run the server without installing it first:

# uv
IDADIR=/path/to/ida uvx ida-mcp

# pipx (set IDADIR if IDA isn't in a standard location)
IDADIR=/path/to/ida pipx run ida-mcp

# uv
$env:IDADIR = "C:\Program Files\IDA Professional 9.3"
uvx ida-mcp

# pipx (set IDADIR if IDA isn't in a standard location)
$env:IDADIR = "C:\Program Files\IDA Professional 9.3"
pipx run ida-mcp

MCP client configuration

Add to your MCP client config (e.g. Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ida": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ida-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

If you don't use uv, use ida-mcp directly (assuming it's installed and on your PATH):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ida": {
      "command": "ida-mcp"
    }
  }
}

If ida-mcp isn't on your PATH (e.g. installed into a pyenv or virtualenv), use the full path to the executable:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ida": {
      "command": "/home/user/.pyenv/versions/<version>/bin/ida-mcp"
    }
  }
}

On macOS, the path would typically be /Users/<you>/.pyenv/versions/<version>/bin/ida-mcp.

If IDA is not in a default location, add IDADIR via the env key (works with any command):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ida": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ida-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "IDADIR": "/path/to/ida"
      }
    }
  }


... [View full README on GitHub](https://github.com/jtsylve/ida-mcp#readme)