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* Ctrl+F: search the whole database, by text or by bytesblasty4 days1-0/+28
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | `/` only ever searched the lines of the view you were in. This adds the search you actually need on a binary: over the entire database, either through the rendered disassembly or through the image. * **text** matches the line as displayed, whitespace-normalised, so `call cs:` finds `call cs:getenv_ptr` (IDA's column padding is not something anyone types). Smartcase; `regex` available over RPC. * **bytes** is IDA's own `find_bytes`, so the pattern language people already know works unchanged: hex pairs, `?` wildcards for a whole byte or one nibble (`48 8? ?? 24`), quoted literals (`"Hello", 0`). Commas, no separators (`488B05C3`) and ragged spacing all normalise. **Which mode you meant is guessed, and the guess is biased on purpose.** `dead`, `add`, `cafe` and `ff` are valid hex AND ordinary things to search for, so a bare hex-looking word stays TEXT; nobody types `48 8b ?? c3` meaning prose. `hex:`/`text:` prefixes and F2 override it. The subtle case is a *typo* in a byte pattern. `48 zz c3` first fell through to a text search and reported "no match" — indistinguishable from "those bytes are not in this binary", which is the most misleading answer a search can give. Now any query whose tokens are all byte-sized is treated as bytes, and a bad token is refused BY NAME. IDA does the same thing quietly (find_bytes answers a malformed pattern with zero hits and no error), so the validation lives in Program.search, not just in the UI. Enter searches, then Enter opens the highlighted hit; the title says which it will do, because a database-wide scan is far too slow to run on every keystroke like the other palettes. Navigation goes to the item head — a byte match can start mid-instruction — and the status names the exact address. Also: the `find` RPC verb and `drive find`, which is the one an agent wants (`drive find '48 8b ?? c3'`). idatui/search.py holds the classification and is pure, so the whole question of "what did they mean" is tested offline: tests/test_search.py, 35 checks, 0.1s. Pilot scenario db_search covers the UI end to end. Full suite: 890 passed, 0 failed, 51.3s.
* Export findings as markdown (Ctrl+E), and the journal that makes it trueblasty4 days1-0/+22
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The output of an RE session is what you worked out, and it was locked in a .i64 that only IDA can read. Ctrl+E (or `drive export`, or the `export` RPC verb) writes it out: your comments grouped by function with the line each annotates, the names and prototypes you set, the types you declared. **The hard part was provenance, and it needed a mechanism, not a filter.** A database does not record WHO wrote a comment or a name. IDA's analyzer sets `; switch 73 cases` and `; s1` with the same `set_cmt` a person uses, and the ELF loader sets `elf_gnu_hash_nbuckets` and `File class: 64-bit` the same way. Four probes, all negative: the FF_COMM flag is identical, `get_cmt` returns them all, `generate_disasm_line` tags every one of them COLOR_REGCMT (not COLOR_AUTOCMT), and they survive with auto-comments switched off. A first cut filtered by shape and produced a report whose first screen was ELF header trivia and `; jumptable ... case 99`. So idatui journals its own edits (idatui/journal.py) into a netnode in the database: it rides along in the .i64, it is still there next session, and the report is then exactly what was done here -- 2 findings out of a database carrying 693 other annotations. Recorded at the choke points in edit_ctl (rename, name-address, comment, retype) and in the struct editor; flushed on save, on export and on quit, so no edit pays a round trip. Without a journal (a database worked on in the IDA GUI, or predating this) the report falls back to filtering by shape -- dummy names, imports, loader segments, the analyzer's stereotyped switch/jumptable strings -- and says so in the document rather than claiming authorship it cannot prove. idatui/findings.py splits gather (needs IDA) from render (does not), so the formatting, grouping, sorting, escaping and the empty cases are tested offline: tests/test_findings.py, 32 checks, no worker, 0.1s. The pilot scenario covers the round trip that matters -- edit through the UI, export, find it in the file, and reload the journal from the .i64. Full suite: 842 passed, 0 failed, 51.2s.
* docs: drop two stale files, correct the two the README links, cut sharp edgesblasty5 days1-0/+10
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | README: "Known sharp edges" removed. docs/GRAPH_VIEW.md pointed the graph's one backend call at server/patch_server.py, a file the port deleted. It is idatui/codemode_client.py now. This matters because GRAPH_VIEW.md is one of only two docs the README links -- a wrong path in a linked doc is worse than no doc. docs/RPC.md was missing five verbs rpc.py serves: ping/methods/quit (now a Session table) and trace/binaries/switch (with the semantic verbs). The trace verb drives a whole feature the README advertises, so its absence was the real gap. Every verb in rpc.py's METHODS table is now documented, checked mechanically -- the remainder of what looked missing turned out to be values of the "move" verb's dir parameter, not verbs. Deleted: - docs/CODEMODE_PORT.md. Written mid-port, and its Result section claims the port covered "the complete current TUI feature set". It did not: the graph view was dead, the operand-format keys were dead, pseudocode comments never appeared, and bulk rename was broken. Keeping a doc that states the opposite of what we found is worse than having none, and docs/CODEMODE_UPSTREAM.md carries the accurate account of the API limits. - docs/TUI_DRIVING_BLUEPRINT.md. A design sketch for generalizing the drive-a-TUI-over-a-socket pattern to other programs, with gdb as the main example -- which now exists for real in ~/dev/gdb-driver. Superseded by the thing it proposed. Nothing linked either file. Both remain in git history.
* diag: somewhere for swallowed errors to goblasty5 days1-0/+1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A TUI must not die because one background load failed, so this codebase catches broadly -- ~50 `except Exception` sites, two dozen resolving to `pass`. Right policy, one bad consequence: with 44 `@work(thread=True)` workers, a failure in a background load leaves no trace whatsoever. The view stays empty and there is nothing to read afterwards, because the app owns the screen. kittygfx already solved this for itself with $IDATUI_KITTY_LOG. idatui/diag.py is the same idea for everything else: $IDATUI_LOG writes every swallowed error plus its traceback to a file, and the last 50 are kept in memory regardless so a driver can ask a live app what went wrong. Unset, it costs an environ lookup. Wired in where losing the error changes a DECISION rather than just a pixel: * rename: a resolve() that throws renames as DATA instead of as a function. * name: a function_of() that throws means we never learn the address is a function start, so the index keeps the old name and every readback says the rename didn't happen. * retype: a resolve() that throws retypes the ENCLOSING function instead. * decompile: a failed full-body fetch silently returns CLIPPED pseudocode. * trail: a failed decomp_map stops the pseudocode being painted, silently. Deliberately NOT wired into the query_one guards -- a modal owning the screen is normal and constant, and logging it would bury the real entries in noise. New RPC verb `diag {n?, clear?}`, documented in docs/RPC.md: the answer to "the verb reported success and the pane shows nothing". Also a flake, same shape as the others: follow_xrefs waited on the nav depth but asserted on _cur, and a follow pushes the source entry BEFORE opening the target -- so the check could run in between and see the function it jumped from. About one run in ten. It waits on the postcondition it asserts now; three clean full runs since. 833 checks; --fast is 344 in 3.5s.
* rpc: a graph verbblasty6 days1-0/+14
| | | | | | | | It reports STRUCTURE -- blocks, typed edges, ranks, box geometry, the cursor -- and not the box-drawing characters, which is what a driver actually wants; screen still gives you the drawing. show is a pure read. The line-oriented verbs refuse in the graph rather than reporting a (block, row) cursor as a line index some later edit would trust.
* rpc: an opfmt verb, and 'drive fmt'blasty6 days1-1/+9
| | | | | | | | mode is cycle/back/show or an explicit format. 'show' reports the current format and the stops on offer without editing, which is what a driver needs: the rendered text alone can't be trusted (a listing read before an ARM/Thumb switch shows the old decoding). 'word' puts the cursor on a token first, so a literal can be named instead of steered to.
* rpc: make a raw firmware image drivable (load options, define, bulk symbols)user11 days1-0/+19
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Opening a headerless blob was the one workflow that fell out of the driving surface entirely, and each gap hid the next: - `pane spawn` couldn't pass --processor/--base/--ida-args, so the pane came up "ready" with zero functions (x86 at 0) and the only way through was to hand-write a project file. It now forwards them to idatui.launch. - c/p/t/T (code, function, ARM<->Thumb, vector scan) existed as listing bindings with no verb, so a driver had to guess raw keys -- and raw keys are swallowed by whatever modal happens to be up. `define {kind,target?}` goes through the app's own edit worker and reports what IDA actually did. - every name went through the typed rename prompt: a navigation (listing page + decompile) plus two prompt round-trips each. A 427-symbol map took tens of minutes of driving. `rename_many {items|file}` hands IDA's rename tool the whole list in one call (371 symbols in 3s) and refreshes the caches and the function table once. drive gains `define <kind> [target...]` and `syms <file.json>`. Verified live against a real pane (tests/test_rawimage_rpc.py, 13 checks: spawn load options, define thumb/func + unknown-kind rejection, rename_many from a file and inline, with resolve/functions readback).
* docs: sweep for the worker-only reality (drop mcp supervisor/spawn.sh/--db)blasty2026-07-241-3/+4
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | * RPC.md: the TUI is launched via `./ida-tui <bin> --rpc <sock>` (was `idatui.tui --db`); point the "regression lock" note at rpcclient/drive + the pilot instead of the deleted rpc_smoke.py. * PAGING_FINDINGS.md: reframe the intro as the ida-pro-mcp tool functions the worker now calls in-process (shapes/caps unchanged); replace the supervisor-era "idle self-exit" + "max_workers cap" sections with the single-owned-worker lifecycle (no cap, no idle-exit, crash -> reconnect). * TEXTUAL_NOTES.md / TUI_DRIVING_BLUEPRINT.md: drop the ida-pro-mcp framing and the deleted rpc_smoke.py references (-> test_scenarios.py / rpcclient). Also updated the idatui + idatui-rpc skills (in ~/.pi, outside the repo) to the worker model: no supervisor/spawn.sh/--db, worker python + $IDATUI_WORKER_PYTHON, worker.py/worker_client.py/errors.py architecture, and the load-starvation gotcha.
* app: multi-line comments via literal \\n (long notes were clipping)blasty2026-07-101-1/+1
| | | | | | | | | The comment prompt is single-line, so a long note rendered as one giant '//' line that ran off the right edge and got clipped. Interpret a literal '\\n' (backslash-n) in the comment text as a real newline in _do_comment (the single choke point for the ';' prompt and the RPC 'comment' verb) — Hex-Rays renders each as its own '//' line. Verified live and locked in the comment_func scenario (multi-line render); suite 104 green.
* drive: add save + retype; point docs/skills at the ergonomic frontendblasty2026-07-101-2/+9
| | | | | | | | Round out idatui.drive with 'save' and 'retype <fn> <proto>' so the whole common RE loop (orient/understand/act/persist) has a terse command. Update docs/RPC.md and both skills (idatui, idatui-rpc) to recommend idatui.drive as the day-to-day driving surface, with rpcclient/raw as the fallback for unwrapped verbs.
* app: drop the Header (keep the Footer); rpc: function-scope xrefs_fromblasty2026-07-101-1/+1
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | The clock/title Header added noise (and made screen() non-deterministic); remove it from the app itself — the Footer stays. Layout shifts up a row; scenario suite still 101 green. xrefs_from on a function was near-useless: the server's xrefs_from is address-scoped, so passing the entry ea only returned the fall-through from the first instruction. For a function target it now returns whole-body references from the decompiler (callees + string/data refs: {to,name,string,is_func,type}); an explicit 0xADDR stays address-scoped. Verified live: xrefs_from main now lists setlocale/getopt_long/sub_* etc. rpc_smoke: 25 green.
* rpc: cursor_on + word= edits, single-driver gate, colored screenblasty2026-07-101-4/+9
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | cursor_on {word,line?,occurrence?} places the cursor on a token, verified with the app's own tokenizer (so 'main' won't match inside 'domain'); rename/retype/follow gain an optional word= that runs it first — the ergonomic way to edit a named symbol without a manual view+cursor dance. Single-driver gate: the socket now serves one client at a time; a second concurrent connection is refused with 'busy' (no multi-driver support yet, by request). Sequential connections are unaffected. screen gains format=text|html|svg (html/svg are colored — for an out-of-band web viewer). rpc_smoke: 24 green.
* rpc: more verbs — structured reads, modal select, in-view search, saveblasty2026-07-101-0/+12
| | | | | | | | | | | | Introspection (offloaded to a thread so a big fetch can't freeze the render): pseudocode (full body), disassembly (bounded), xrefs_to/from (structured), resolve (name->ea). These let an agent reason about a function and the call graph without scraping screen(). Semantic: select (choose the highlighted/nth item in the open xrefs or symbol-palette list and activate it — the natural follow-up to xrefs/ symbols), search (/ or ? incremental in the active code view), save (Ctrl+S). rpc_smoke exercises all of them end-to-end (18 green).
* docs: RPC protocol reference (docs/RPC.md)blasty2026-07-101-0/+98