ida-rpc

(c) B.Kerler 2026

A JSON-RPC daemon for IDA Pro, inspired by ghidra-rpc.

Exposes IDA Pro reverse engineering capabilities over a local socket for integration with LLM agents, automation pipelines, and multi-agent setups. Linux and macOS use Unix domain sockets; Windows uses loopback TCP because socket.AF_UNIX is not available in all supported Windows IDA/Python setups.

• Human-readable CLI output by default, with --json or IDA_RPC_JSON=1 for structured JSON — faster and more reliable than MCP
• Headless mode — run via ida -A for CI/automation
• GUI mode — works inside the interactive IDA Pro session
• Protocol compatible with ghidra-rpc's CLI design
• Full feature set: decompile, disassemble, xrefs, rename, types, structs, enums, bookmarks, search, memory maps, patches, segments, processor context, namespaces, tags

Via the IDA Plugin Manager (recommended):

hcli plugin install ida-rpc

Or in the script path:

hcli plugin install .

Or manually:

pip install -e /path/to/ida-rpc
ln -s /path/to/ida-rpc/ida_rpc_plugin.py $IDAUSR/plugins/ida_rpc_plugin.py

Default $IDAUSR paths:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Hex-Rays\IDA Pro\
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/IDA Pro/
• Linux: ~/.idapro/

For agents and automation, first ask the tool what it can do and which IDB path to use:

ida-rpc capabilities
ida-rpc find-project /path/to/binary-or-existing.i64
ida-rpc list-loaders /path/to/binary

# Start headless daemon from a binary (headless is the default)
ida-rpc open /path/to/binary --arch <arch> --detach

# Or open an existing IDB
ida-rpc open --project /path/to/existing.i64 --arch <arch> --detach

# For raw binaries, specify architecture and base address.
# The segment is auto-configured (class, bitness, permissions) based on arch.
ida-rpc open /path/to/raw.bin --arch arm --base 0x8000 --detach

# Open in GUI mode instead
ida-rpc open /path/to/binary --arch <arch> --gui --detach

# Existing IDBs ignore raw import options such as --base and --loader.
# The requested --arch still configures processor/bitness after the IDB opens.

# When opening a system binary (e.g. /usr/bin/ls), specify a writable project path
ida-rpc open /usr/bin/ls --project /tmp/ls_analysis.i64 --arch x86 --detach

# Set default project for subsequent commands
export IDA_RPC_PROJECT=/path/to/binary.i64

# Query functions
ida-rpc functions --limit 10

# Decompile main
ida-rpc decompile main

# Rename a function
ida-rpc rename-function sub_401000 my_func

# List all active daemons
ida-rpc list

Commands print human-readable text by default. Pass --json (before the subcommand) or set IDA_RPC_JSON=1 to get structured JSON. Commands that operate on an open database accept --project <idb> or read IDA_RPC_PROJECT.

Lumina commands use the primary or secondary Lumina server configured in IDA (Options > General > Lumina) or overridden for the IDA session with -Olumina:... / -Osecondary_lumina:.... Credentials are not returned.

Codex, Kimi, and other coding agents should use ida-rpc automatically for IDA-based reverse engineering. The repository includes AGENTS.md, KIMI.md, and SKILL.md so agents can discover the intended workflow after install.

The stable automation probe is:

ida-rpc capabilities

The stable project-resolution probe is:

ida-rpc find-project /path/to/binary-or-idb

After that, use open --arch <arch>, status, functions, decompile, disassemble, strings, xrefs-to, xrefs-from, rename-function, set-comment, and save. Commands print human-readable text on stdout by default; pass --json (before the subcommand) or set IDA_RPC_JSON=1 for JSON output. Unexpected CLI/RPC failures are reported on stderr as Error: <error>: <message> (or JSON with --json); set IDA_RPC_DEBUG=1 to also print tracebacks on stderr.

┌─────────────┐      Unix Socket       ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│  LLM agent  │  ──── JSON/newline ──→ │  ida-rpc daemon              │
│  (via CLI)  │  ←── JSON/newline ───  │  (IDA Python plugin + server)│
└─────────────┘                        └──────────────────────────────┘

MIT