1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
|
# ida-tui
A minimal, keyboard-first (mouse-capable) **TUI frontend for IDA Pro**, built with
[Textual](https://textual.textualize.io/) and talking to the
[ida-pro-mcp](https://github.com/mrexodia/ida-pro-mcp) (idalib) server.
## ⚠️ Status: not ready for public consumption
This is a personal, actively-hacked-on project. It is **not** packaged, polished,
or supported for general use. Expect sharp edges:
- Hardcoded paths and assumptions (e.g. a venv at `~/ida-venv`, a supervisor on
`127.0.0.1:8745`).
- No stable API, no versioning promises, no changelog — things move and break.
- Requires a working IDA Pro + idalib install, which you must license and set up
yourself.
- Known open bugs (see the backlog below), including wonky xref navigation and no
handling of PLT/import stubs.
- Basically undocumented beyond this file and `docs/`.
If you found this expecting a finished tool: it isn't one yet. Poke around, but
don't file expectations. **Use at your own risk.**
## What it does
- Virtualized **disassembly** and **decompilation (pseudocode)** views that page
lazily over the MCP server.
- Keyboard navigation: follow (`enter`), xrefs (`x`), rename (`n`), incremental
search (`/` `?`), history (`back`), view toggle.
- A **functions panel**, **hex viewer**, **struct editor**, and **(re-)typing**.
- An optional unix-socket **RPC layer** to puppeteer the live TUI from another
process (agent-driven RE / livestreaming). See `docs/RPC.md`.
## Architecture (three layers, kept separate)
- **`idatui/client.py`** — stdlib-only persistent MCP client (`http.client` pool,
warm handshake, session recovery, keep-alive). No third-party deps.
- **`idatui/domain.py`** — paging/caching over the client (`FunctionIndex`,
`DisasmModel`, `decompile`, xrefs, resolve). Synchronous, thread-safe.
- **`idatui/app.py`** — the Textual app (virtualized `ScrollView`s, shared cursor/
search/nav mixins, modals).
The client and domain layers are intentionally **stdlib-only**; only the TUI layer
pulls in Textual + Pygments.
## Requirements
- Python ≥ 3.11
- A working **IDA Pro** with **idalib** and **ida-pro-mcp** installed.
- Textual ≥ 8 and Pygments ≥ 2 for the TUI (`pip install -e '.[tui]'`).
## Running
```sh
# 1. Start the ida-pro-mcp supervisor (opens bin/ls by default).
./spawn.sh # supervisor on 127.0.0.1:8745
# 2. Launch the TUI (use a python that has textual + idapro).
python -m idatui.tui # auto-resolve the sole session
python -m idatui.tui --db <session>
python -m idatui.tui --open /abs/path/bin # dir must be WRITABLE (.i64)
```
The `spawn.sh` host/port/target are overridable via `IDA_MCP_HOST`,
`IDA_MCP_PORT`, `IDA_MCP_TARGET`, `IDA_MCP_MAX_WORKERS`. A systemd unit is in
`systemd/`.
## RPC / driving the TUI
Give the TUI `--rpc <sock>` to expose a unix-socket control channel, then drive
it from another pane:
```sh
python -m idatui.tui --db <s> --rpc /tmp/ida.sock
python -m idatui.drive where # ergonomic terse-text helper
python -m idatui.drive pc main # pseudocode of main
python -m idatui.drive rename sub_5BE0 foo # goto + rename
```
See `docs/RPC.md` for the full protocol.
## Tests
Headless Textual `Pilot` suites live in `tests/` and need a live session id:
```sh
python tests/test_scenarios.py --db <session> # UI suite
python tests/test_scenarios.py --db <s> --only hex,rename
python tests/test_domain.py --db <session> # domain/paging (stdlib)
```
## Docs
- `docs/RPC.md` — the RPC protocol
- `docs/PAGING_FINDINGS.md` — ida-pro-mcp/idalib paging quirks
- `docs/TEXTUAL_NOTES.md` — Textual pitfalls encountered
- `docs/TUI_DRIVING_BLUEPRINT.md` — generalizing the driving layer
|
