borer

<p align="center"> <a href="https://borer.lol"> <picture> <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="brand/banner-dark.png"> <img alt="borer: reverse engineering, rebuilt for AI agents" src="brand/banner-light.png" width="100%"> </picture> </a> </p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/imjustprism/borer/releases/latest"><img alt="Release" src="https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/imjustprism/borer?style=flat-square&labelColor=0b0c0e&color=26272b&label=release"></a> <a href="https://github.com/imjustprism/borer/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img alt="CI" src="https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/imjustprism/borer/ci.yml?branch=main&style=flat-square&labelColor=0b0c0e&color=26272b&label=ci"></a> <a href="LICENSE"><img alt="AGPL-3.0 license" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-AGPL--3.0-26272b?style=flat-square&labelColor=0b0c0e&color=26272b"></a> <img alt="MCP server" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/MCP-server-26272b?style=flat-square&labelColor=0b0c0e&color=26272b"> </p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://borer.lol"><b>borer.lol</b></a> &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="https://borer.lol/docs">Docs</a> &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="#install">Install</a> &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="https://borer.lol/docs/tools">Tools</a> &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="https://borer.lol/llms.txt">llms.txt</a> </p>

borer is a reverse-engineering engine built for AI agents. It loads a binary, finds the code that matters, decompiles it to C, follows data through it and keeps what it learns. It is one Rust binary: an MCP server when run with no arguments, a command-line tool with them. There is no GUI, and no Ghidra, IDA or Binary Ninja underneath.

[!WARNING] borer is early-stage. Expect rough edges, and expect tool names, output and resource URIs to change between releases. Please report anything that looks wrong.

Why borer

• Checked output. On x86, x86-64, arm64 and 32-bit ARM, the statements the lifter writes for each block are run on a model of the machine from seeded states and compared with the code they came from, and each function's header says what that covered and what it did not (the later text passes, the C spelling); RISC-V output is not checked yet. On x86 and x86-64, borer certify also runs a function's final text as C beside the binary and grades it. Instructions it cannot model stay as /* asm: ... */ instead of a guess.
• Sized for a context window. Lists are filtered and paged on the server (# showing N of M), a repeated request with since=<tag> returns only what changed, and the same question always returns the same bytes.
• Fast. A typical binary loads and decompiles in seconds, so an agent can read every function instead of guessing where to look.
• Safe on hostile input. Reads are bounds-checked, scans capped and walks fuel-limited: a malformed or malicious file gets an error, never a crash. The binary is never modified, and annotations are dry runs by default.
• Its own engine. Loader, lifters, emulator, structurer and decompiler are written in Rust for this purpose. Only instruction decoding and file parsing come from standard crates.

Typical uses: malware triage and unpacking, vulnerability research with taint and input solving, auditing closed libraries and firmware, and recovering classes, protocols and message formats.

Platforms

| Architecture | Disassemble | Decompile | Emulation tools | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | x86, x86-64 | yes | yes | yes | | arm64 | yes | yes | yes | | 32-bit ARM (A32, Thumb-2) | yes | yes | no | | RISC-V (RV32, RV64 GC) | yes | yes | no |

Formats: PE, ELF, Mach-O, raw code and memory dumps.

Install

macOS and Linux:

curl -fsSL https://borer.lol/install | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://borer.lol/install.ps1 | iex

The installer downloads the latest release, checks it against the release's SHA256SUMS and registers borer with every MCP client it finds: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI and 20 more. Restart the clients it names afterwards.

Package managers install the same release binary:

cargo binstall borer                  # or cargo install borer
brew install imjustprism/tap/borer    # macOS, Linux x64
npm install -g @imjustprism/borer     # or npx -y @imjustprism/borer
pipx install borer                    # or uvx borer

On Windows with Scoop: scoop bucket add imjustprism https://github.com/imjustprism/scoop-bucket, then scoop install imjustprism/borer. In Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add imjustprism/borer, then /plugin install borer@borer. From source, with the toolchain rust-toolchain.toml pins: cargo build --release.

Register an installed binary with borer setup --apply (borer setup alone shows each file and entry it would write, in each client's own format). Most clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI and others) read mcpServers, with the binary's absolute path:

{ "mcpServers": { "borer": { "command": "/path/to/borer", "args": [] } } }

VS Code reads servers (with "type": "stdio"), Zed context_servers, and Codex CLI [mcp_servers.borer] in its TOML; borer setup writes each in its own format.

To uninstall, run borer setup --apply --remove, then delete the binary and its cache (%LOCALAPPDATA%\borer or ~/.cache/borer). The installers do all three with --uninstall (-Uninstall in PowerShell).

Quick start

From an agent:

1. load_binary
2. read borer://triage: what the file is, how it is protected, where to start
3. find_function_by_string, strings or symbols
4. function_summary, then decompile
5. xrefs, cfg or callgraph to go wider

Any address argument takes 0x hex, decimal or a name.

| Area | Tools | | --- | --- | | Load | load_binary, binary_info, fetch_pdb, reload | | Find | functions, function, symbols, strings, search, find_function_by_string, find_crypto_constants, entropy | | Read code | function_summary, function_strings, decompile, decompile_batch, disassemble, disassemble_function, cfg, callgraph, reaches, xrefs, class_layout | | Read data | read, hexdump | | Annotate | set_name, set_comment, set_type, types, annotations, save_project, load_project | | Live process (Windows) | live_attach, live_detach, live_modules, live_read, live_object, live_instances, live_watch, live_scan | | Anything else | query, script |

Deeper analyses are borer:// resources: taint, struct layout, emulation, input solving, unpacking, deobfuscation, binary diff, decoded strings, IOCs, signatures and YARA rules. borer://help lists them all, and a client without resource support passes the same URI to query.

From the command line:

borer triage    sample.exe
borer decompile sample.exe <address|name>
borer xrefs     sample.exe <address|name>
borer certify   sample.exe <address|name>   # how far the decompiled text was checked
borer help                                  # every command

--pack <file> loads target knowledge, --no-pdb skips the companion PDB, and --arch x86|x64|arm64 with --base and --entry maps raw code or a dump.

Network access

borer has no telemetry or crash reporting. Only these reach the network:

• A command line run at a terminal checks once a day for a newer release on GitHub. It never runs for the MCP server or under CI, and BORER_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 turns it off.
• fetch_pdb, only when asked, sends the PDB's name, GUID and age to the symbol server, and borer doctor checks that server is reachable unless run as borer doctor offline.
• borer update and the installers download the release from GitHub.

Limits

• 32-bit ARM and RISC-V are not emulated, so the emulator-backed analyses refuse them. On arm64, taint, layout, solve, unpack and devirt refuse to run.
• Shapes the structurer cannot prove stay as labels and gotos; SIMD code prints as intrinsics.
• No debugger: no breakpoints and no writes. Live access is Windows only.
• .NET IL and Swift are not decompiled, and DWARF supplies names and types, not line tables.
• Library signatures ship for LLVM compiler-rt, the Microsoft C++ standard library and the Rust standard library; build a pack for any other with borer sigmake.

Contributing

python scripts/gate.py runs what CI runs. The rules for people and coding agents are in borer.rules, and the terms for contributions in CONTRIBUTING.md.

| Crate | Role | | --- | --- | | borer-engine | The analysis core: loading, lifting, emulation, decompilation. Pure and synchronous. | | borer | The MCP server and CLI over the engine. | | borer-live | Read-only access to a running process. | | borer-fixtures | Programs the tests decompile and check against their source. |

License

borer is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0-only). If you distribute borer or a modified version, or let users interact with a modified version over a network, you must offer its complete source under the same license. Versions 0.1.0 and 0.1.1 were released under MIT. A commercial license is available for uses the AGPL does not fit: open an issue or reach out on GitHub.

Third-party notices are in NOTICE, and each release archive carries the licenses of everything the binary links. Ghidra is a project of the NSA. IDA and Hex-Rays are trademarks of Hex-Rays SA, Binary Ninja is a trademark of Vector 35, and Claude is a trademark of Anthropic. borer is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.