IDAssistMCP

Standalone MCP (Model Context Protocol) server plugin for IDA Pro 9.x that exposes IDA's analysis capabilities to LLM clients like Claude Desktop.

Features

• 41 MCP tools covering binary analysis, decompilation, cross-references, symbol management, type system, navigation, patching, export, and more
• 6 consolidated tools with action/format/direction parameters for comments, variables, types, xrefs, bookmarks, and code
• 8 MCP resources for browsable binary metadata (triage, functions, imports, exports, strings, info, segments, sections)
• 7 guided prompts for common reverse engineering workflows (function analysis, vulnerability identification, documentation, data flow tracing, function comparison, struct recovery, network protocol analysis)
• SSE and Streamable HTTP transports via Hypercorn ASGI server
• Thread-safe IDB modifications via execute_on_main_thread() wrapper
• LRU analysis cache for expensive operations like decompilation
• Async task manager for long-running operations
• Pydantic configuration with environment variable support (IDASSISTMCP_ prefix)

Installation

Prerequisites

• IDA Pro 9.x with Python 3.10+
• Hex-Rays decompiler (optional, for decompilation tools)

Option 1: IDA Plugin Manager (recommended)

hcli plugin install idassistmcp

This automatically installs the plugin and its Python dependencies.

Option 2: Manual install (from release tarball)

Download the latest release zip from GitHub Releases and extract it into your IDA plugins directory:

Linux / macOS:

unzip IDAssistMCP-*.zip -d ~/.idapro/plugins/

Windows: Extract the zip into %APPDATA%\Hex-Rays\IDA Pro\plugins\.

Then install dependencies using IDA's bundled Python (not your system Python):

Linux / macOS:

<IDA_INSTALL_DIR>/python3/bin/pip3 install -r ~/.idapro/plugins/IDAssistMCP/requirements.txt

Windows:

"<IDA_INSTALL_DIR>\python3\python.exe" -m pip install -r "%APPDATA%\Hex-Rays\IDA Pro\plugins\IDAssistMCP\requirements.txt"

Replace <IDA_INSTALL_DIR> with your IDA Pro installation path.

Tip: You can also use the IDAUSR environment variable to specify a custom plugins directory.

Usage

Starting the Server

1. Open a binary in IDA Pro
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+M or go to Edit > Plugins > IDAssistMCP
3. The MCP server URL will be printed to IDA's output window
4. Press Ctrl+Shift+M again to stop the server

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "idassistmcp": {
      "url": "http://localhost:9080/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Environment Variables

Configure via environment variables with the IDASSISTMCP_ prefix:

Variable	Default	Description
IDASSISTMCP_SERVER__HOST	localhost	Server bind address
IDASSISTMCP_SERVER__PORT	9080	Server port
IDASSISTMCP_SERVER__TRANSPORT	streamablehttp	Transport type (sse or streamablehttp)
IDASSISTMCP_DEBUG	false	Enable debug mode
IDASSISTMCP_LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Log level

Tools Reference

Binary Management (2)

Tool	Description
list_binaries	List the currently loaded binary
get_binary_info	Detailed binary metadata (arch, hashes, segments)

Code Analysis (4)

Tool	Description
get_code	Get function code — format: 'decompile' (pseudo-C) or 'disasm' (assembly)
analyze_function	Comprehensive analysis: metadata, CFG, callers/callees, decompilation
get_basic_blocks	CFG basic blocks with successors/predecessors
get_function_stack_layout	Stack frame layout (locals, args, saved regs)

Cross-References (1 consolidated)

| Tool | Actions |

... View full README on GitHub