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:

Tools Reference

Binary Management (2)

Code Analysis (4)

Cross-References (1 consolidated)

Comments (1 consolidated)

Variables (1 consolidated)

Types (2 — 1 consolidated + 1 standalone)

Function Discovery (5)

Symbol Management (2)

Binary Info (5)

Data Analysis (6)

Patching (3)

Navigation (4)

Task Management (4)

Project Structure

IDAssistMCP/
├── idassistmcp_plugin.py              # IDA plugin_t entry point
├── requirements.txt
├── README.md
└── src/
    └── idassist_mcp/
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── server.py                  # FastMCP server + transport
        ├── context.py                 # Single-binary IDA context
        ├── tools.py                   # 41 MCP tools (IDA API)
        ├── resources.py               # 8 MCP resources
        ├── prompts.py                 # 7 guided workflow prompts
        ├── config.py                  # Pydantic settings
        ├── cache.py                   # LRU analysis cache
        ├── tasks.py                   # Async task manager
        ├── logging.py                 # IDA logging wrapper
        ├── utils.py                   # IDA-specific utilities
        └── ui/
            └── tool_registry.py       # Tool catalog for UI

License

See LICENSE file for details.