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.

Bottom line: a lean, security-first Ghidra MCP. It is read-only by default — analysis tools never mutate your binaries or the server's configuration (which is frozen for the life of the process). The one tool that writes, annotate (rename / comment / prototype), is opt-in (--allow-write) and human-confirmed: every change is approved by you through an MCP elicitation prompt before it's committed, and it fails closed if your client can't ask. You get an analyst-agent that can persist its findings — under supervision — without giving up the read-only safety story.

Quick Start

1. Prerequisites

JDK 21+ and Ghidra 11.x are required.

# macOS
brew install openjdk@21
brew install 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 installed via Homebrew (brew install ghidra) or to /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"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Shared HTTP transport (network access

... View full README on GitHub