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REA: Reverse Engineer Anything
One CLI and MCP server for agents to reverse engineer anything
See a feature you like. Understand how it works, down to the binary level.
Quick start · Current status · Investigation model · Tool catalog · Roadmap · How it works
npm install --global rea-agents && rea setup
See a feature in an app that you want in your own product? Give the app to your agent—even without its source code. With REA, the agent can investigate the feature, explain how it works, show its evidence, and build a version adapted to your stack and requirements.
REA gives agents one consistent way to investigate software. Today that includes deep native analysis and function dossiers through Hopper or bring-your-own Ghidra on Linux, plus an experimental Windows x64 Ghidra P0 for approved native PE applications; execution-free managed PE/CLI triage; reproducible Evidence v2 records; controlled process capture; passive website and Electron observation; bounded JavaScript/source-map reconstruction; and a versioned domain graph for connecting JavaScript application layers without confusing static inference with runtime observation. The longer-term toolkit extends the same agent workflow to APIs, protocols, mobile artifacts, firmware, richer runtime behavior, and differences between versions.
Reverse engineering normally makes the operator choose a tool, learn its API, move evidence between programs, and decide what to inspect next. REA gives that work to the agent through commands, skills, structured results, and repeatable investigation workflows.
Just ask your agent
Run setup once. Agent integration installs an aligned MCP registration and the bundled routing skill together:
npx rea-agents setup
Then ask:
Understand how search works in the Notes app, show me the evidence, and build a
similar feature for my project.
Notes is only an example. Name any app you want to understand, or ask the agent to start with an overview.
The investigation model
REA shows how it reached its conclusions. It does not claim to recover original source code or automatically clone an application.
Why REA
| Built for agents | Ask what an app does and let your agent inspect it instead of guessing. |
| CLI and MCP | Run the same reverse-engineering capabilities from your terminal or agent. |
| Complexity handled | REA installs and manages the reverse-engineering tools behind the scenes. |
| From insight to code | Understand a feature, then build your own version in the same coding session. |
| Local by design | Analysis runs on your supported local host. REA does not upload the app to a hosted analysis service. |
| Keeps context | Investigate several apps without starting over for every question. |
Quick start
Run setup — recommended
npx rea-agents setup
The npm package-runner prompt, when shown, approves downloading REA for this
invocation; it does not approve any setup changes. The REA wizard separately
shows its complete plan and asks before applying it. Setup does not update
Homebrew, Node.js, or npm. npx rea-agents setup opens with the work it
enables: investigate local apps from an agent, recover evidence through a
deep-analysis provider, and reuse REA's guided workflow. It summarizes the
detected agents, then asks which capabilities to set up: agent integration
(MCP plus the matching guided workflow) and—when needed—the Hopper provider.
Nothing is preselected. Choosing agent integration opens a second empty
checklist for the specific detected agents that should receive a registration.
REA keeps the journey inline so its history remains in the terminal. Selecting a capability does not select every detected target or authorize a change. Before anything changes, REA validates existing configuration, prints exact paths and external effects, and asks for final approval with No as the default. The screen keeps the available keys visible while you choose; Ctrl-C and declining leave the system unchanged.
REA detects Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, and Devin. It configures the first six when detected; Devin is reported but left unchanged because it has no documented local MCP configuration boundary. Registrations are additive, backup-first, and read back after writing. You can safely rerun setup.
Use rea setup --dry-run to inspect the plan, repeat --client to select exact
agents, and --accessible for sequential vertical prompts. Machine output
remains available through --json; prompt UI and progress go to stderr.
After a successful setup, REA reports the capabilities now ready to use and a concrete next step, such as restarting a configured agent before asking it to investigate an application. It does not claim an integration or provider is ready unless setup and its final diagnostic check verified it.
An optional curl wrapper installs the same CLI package and starts setup only when a terminal is available:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morluto/rea/main/install.sh | bash
Pass installer options after bash -s --, for example --dry-run, --no-setup, or --version 1.0.0. The curl wrapper never installs prerequisites or configures integrations itself. See Installation and setup for its exact mutation boundary.
With an agent — recommended
npx rea-agents setup
Choose Agent Integration in the reviewed setup plan. REA installs the pinned MCP registration and its matching routing skill as one transaction. After setup, restart the configured agent so it loads the aligned integration.
Review the setup plan, approve it if appropriate, then describe the app or feature you want to understand. Hopper can run in its free demo mode; if it shows a first-run prompt, choose the demo or enter an existing license.
From Terminal — no installation
npx rea-agents setup
npx -y rea-agents@latest doctor
npx -y rea-agents@latest analyze /Applications/Notes.app
Review the setup plan before confirming it. Restart a configured agent so it loads REA.
From Terminal — install the rea command
npm install --global rea-agents
rea setup
rea doctor
rea analyze /Applications/Notes.app
Update that global installation in place:
rea upgrade
REA checks npm for the latest release and verifies that the running package is
the global installation it will replace. Source, local, and npx copies report
the manual npm install --global rea-agents@latest command instead of updating
an unrelated global package.
Choose either the no-install commands or the global installation. You do not need both.
npm install rea-agents without --global installs rea only into the
current project's node_modules/.bin; it does not add rea to your shell
PATH. Use the npx commands above for one-off runs or --global when you
want a shell-visible rea command.
Requirements
- macOS 12 or newer
- Ubuntu 24.04+, Fedora 41+, or 64-bit Arch Linux
- Windows x64 for the experimental, Ghidra-only native PE P0 boundary
- Node.js 22.19+ or 24.11+ (including newer releases)
- npm; REA does not require or install a particular npm version
Deep binary operations use Hopper, a separate desktop application with its own license, or a caller-selected Ghidra provider. Ghidra supplies read-only inventory, function metadata, decompilation, assembly, resolved calls, typed references, xrefs, CFG, and function dossiers; GUI state and mutations remain unavailable through that provider. Setup reuses an existing Hopper installation or an operator-supplied Ghidra installation. It never downloads Ghidra or installs Java. If neither provider is ready, interactive setup proposes Hopper; unattended Hopper installation requires rea setup --yes --install-hopper.
If something is not working, run:
npx -y rea-agents@latest doctor
rea doctor --json is read-only and distinguishes unsupported hosts, missing dependencies, a missing local analysis engine, configuration drift, and healthy checks. Paid-license activation is optional: on Linux, REA runs the supported Hopper demo build on a private Xvfb display and selects Hopper's offered demo mode for each analysis session.
Linux installation and troubleshooting
On macOS, approved setup downloads Hopper's official DMG, verifies it, and installs the app into ~/Applications without Homebrew or administrator privileges. Hopper may show its demo or license prompt when first opened; no manual drag-and-drop is required.
On Ubuntu 24.04+, Fedora 41+, and 64-bit Arch Linux, approved setup downloads the pinned official Hopper 6.4.2 package, restricts downloads to Hopper's public origin, verifies the published size and checksum, and invokes apt-get, dnf, or pacman to install Hopper and the Xvfb, Python, X11, and XTEST packages used by demo sessions. When REA is not already running as root, pkexec presents the system authorization prompt. REA never invokes sudo. Demo sessions run on an isolated 1280×1024 Xvfb display. REA verifies the exact supported Hopper binary, its owned process ancestry, the expected dialog geometry, and bridge state before selecting Try the Demo; any mismatch fails closed.
The normal Linux launcher is /opt/hopper/bin/Hopper. If Hopper was installed elsewhere:
export HOPPER_LAUNCHER_PATH=/absolute/path/to/Hopper
rea doctor --json
If doctor reports a missing analysis engine even though the file exists, inspect shared-library resolution with:
ldd /opt/hopper/bin/Hopper | grep 'not found'
Install the missing distribution packages and rerun rea setup. Linux demo automation requires Xvfb, Python 3, libX11.so.6, and libXtst.so.6; approved setup installs those direct runtime dependencies and does not interact with the user's desktop display. Hopper's free demo supports analysis with vendor-defined limits, and a paid license is optional. The curl installer places the rea command in ~/.local/bin on Linux; add that directory to future shell PATH values if it is not already present.
REA defaults HOPPER_LAUNCHER_PATH to /Applications/Hopper Disassembler.app/Contents/MacOS/hopper on macOS and /opt/hopper/bin/Hopper on Linux. Explicit configuration always takes precedence.
Ghidra read-only analysis provider
The Ghidra adapter supports the exact official Ghidra 12.1.2 release with a 64-bit full JDK 21 on Linux x64. It also provides an experimental Windows x64 P0 limited to approved native x86-64 PE applications. Download and extract those projects yourself, then configure absolute paths:
export GHIDRA_INSTALL_DIR=/absolute/path/to/ghidra_12.1.2_PUBLIC
export JAVA_HOME=/absolute/path/to/jdk-21 # optional when java and javac resolve from PATH
rea doctor --json
rea setup
rea providers --json
Doctor distinguishes missing configuration, a bad installation root, the wrong Ghidra or Java version, a JRE without javac, a missing support/analyzeHeadless, and an unsupported platform or architecture. Approved setup only copies the verified non-secret paths into detected MCP registrations; it does not modify the Ghidra installation or install/download Ghidra or Java.
On Windows, set the same variables in PowerShell and run rea doctor --json; automated rea setup and Hopper installation remain unavailable. The P0 target boundary rejects DLLs, managed PE files, non-x86-64 images, mutable/hostile inputs, and non-PE formats. See the Windows Ghidra P0 operations guide for registration, exact limitations, CI evidence, and acceptance gates.
REA loads its packaged Java HeadlessScript with -scriptPath, copies and digest-verifies the target in an ephemeral runtime, enables -readOnly and -deleteProject, caps auto-analysis at 300 seconds with two CPUs and a 2 GiB Java heap, and authenticates every request. Linux uses a mode-0600 Unix socket. Windows P0 uses token-authenticated IPv4 loopback and a token-free endpoint record because Node path-based IPC does not connect to Java AF_UNIX sockets on Windows. The bridge verifies Ghidra's imported-byte SHA-256 before serving any operation.
The Ghidra adapter declares 18 direct and enhanced operations. Its ten inventory operations are list_documents, list_procedures, list_strings, list_names, list_segments, address_name, procedure_address, resolve_containing_procedure, search_procedures, and search_strings. It also admits procedure_info, procedure_pseudo_code, procedure_assembly, procedure_callers, procedure_callees, procedure_references, xrefs, and analyze_function. These capabilities enable the shared Swift/Objective-C inventory workflows, binary_overview, batch_decompile, get_call_graph, find_xrefs_to_name, trace_feature, and complete function dossiers. Default-space addresses are lowercase 0x hexadecimal. Other spaces, including EXTERNAL, use <percent-encoded-space>:0x<hex>. Symbol results identify primary, dynamic, external, type, and source facts; procedures distinguish external functions and thunks; strings identify charset, missing-terminator state, byte length, and value truncation; memory-block ends are exclusive and permissions come directly from Ghidra.
The bridge serves operations only after auto-analysis completes. Each Program owns one persistent DecompInterface; a bounded 32-request FIFO serializes Ghidra API access, and every decompile has a 30-second native deadline. Reference results preserve Ghidra's call/jump/data/read/write/indirect/computed/external facts, while unresolved targetless flows remain explicitly unknown. Synthetic entry-point references without actionable memory sources are omitted. Pseudocode and assembly are provider-specific observations, not original source or Hopper-equivalent text. An analysis timeout, scan or inventory safety limit, request timeout, or oversized response fails explicitly instead of returning a partial result labeled complete.
npm run verify:ghidra compiles source-owned x86-64 debug and stripped ELF, AArch64 ELF, x86-64 PE, and x86-64 Mach-O fixtures. Against real Ghidra 12.1.2 it validates every admitted operation, direct and indirect calls, imports/exports/thunks, typed references, strings/xrefs, multi-block CFG, cancellation, deadlines, concurrency, malformed inputs, and complete process/project cleanup. Set REA_CC, REA_CLANG, or REA_LLD_LINK only when the corresponding compiler command is not on PATH.
npm run verify:ghidra:windows uses a deterministic source-owned native x86-64 PE application and requires all 18 operations, target/snapshot/import digest linkage, authenticated loopback transport, and cleanup on a controlled Windows x64 Ghidra 12.1.2 runner. This proof does not establish Job Object ownership, private DACLs, or reparse-point-safe authority.
To remove only REA-owned MCP registrations and the managed skill:
rea uninstall
rea uninstall --purge-data # also removes only ~/.rea/cache and ~/.rea/state
Uninstall preserves Hopper, Node.js, evidence, captures, external evidence roots, unrelated skills, and other MCP servers. It refuses malformed client configuration and never follows purge-data symlinks.
CLI or agent?
| If you want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Ask an agent to investigate an app and build a feature | Install the skill, then talk to your agent |
| Inspect or decompile one part of an app from the Terminal | rea analyze or rea decompile |
| Validate, canonicalize, or compare Evidence v2 bundles | rea evidence-import, rea evidence-export, or rea compare |
| Run or resume a persistent two-version artifact analysis | rea investigate-versions |
| Map a local JavaScript/Electron application without executing it | rea analyze PATH --approved or rea analyze-javascript-application |
| Reuse immutable analysis results without relaunching a provider | Pass --snapshot /approved/path/analysis.json to a deep-analysis command |
| Import source as historical reference | rea import-reference-source |
| Capture or compare controlled process behavior | rea capture-process or rea compare-process-captures |
Filesystem evidence commands and MCP file tools are disabled until the operator approves absolute roots:
export REA_EVIDENCE_ROOTS_JSON='["/absolute/path/to/evidence"]'
export REA_INVESTIGATION_INPUT_ROOTS_JSON='["/absolute/path/to/releases"]'
rea evidence-import /absolute/path/to/evidence/bundle.json
rea evidence-export /absolute/path/to/evidence/bundle.json /absolute/path/to/evidence/canonical.json
rea compare /absolute/path/to/evidence/left.json /absolute/path/to/evidence/right.json
rea investigate-versions /absolute/path/to/releases/v1 /absolute/path/to/releases/v2 /absolute/path/to/evidence/releases.json --yes --workspace-name releases
rea analyze /absolute/path/to/releases/app.asar --approved --json
rea analyze-javascript-application /absolute/path/to/releases/app.asar --approved --json
For a directory or .asar, generic rea analyze automatically selects the
static JavaScript application provider when neither --provider nor
--snapshot is supplied. The dedicated command remains available for explicit
format and resource-limit controls. Both routes require --approved and an
administrator-approved investigation input root.
If REA is registered with an MCP client, run approved rea setup while the
explicit investigation-root variable is set, then restart that client. Setup
copies this non-secret policy into the managed registration; changing the shell
environment alone cannot update an already-running MCP process.
investigate-versions inventories both versions, checkpoints their observed
Evidence, derives an artifact comparison, and records a changed-behavior report.
Both input paths must resolve beneath REA_INVESTIGATION_INPUT_ROOTS_JSON;
workspace files remain independently restricted by REA_EVIDENCE_ROOTS_JSON.
The workspace uses deterministic content identities and monotonic CAS-linked
revisions, so the same request resumes an interrupted run or reuses a completed
run without replacing earlier investigations. It currently compares static
artifact structure only; it does not execute either version, and its report
keeps every difference labeled as a behavior candidate. See
Persistent investigation workspaces.
Historical source import requires a separate allowlist and never treats source as current behavioral authority:
export REA_REFERENCE_ROOTS_JSON='["/absolute/path/to/source"]'
rea import-reference-source /absolute/path/to/source
Exports never replace an existing file unless --overwrite is explicit. Imports are size/depth bounded, validate every Evidence v2 ID and manifest, and never execute bundle content.
Provider-neutral analysis snapshots persist successful, immutable REA calls and their Evidence v2 records. They are exact caches rather than Hopper databases: REA reuses a v2 entry only when the binary digest, kind, format, architecture, operation parameters, concrete provider build, and canonical analysis-profile digest match. Hopper loader defaults and configured overrides are normalized by the Hopper adapter and committed to that profile, so overrides occupy a distinct safe cache partition instead of disabling snapshots. Snapshot v1 cannot prove those semantics and is rejected with recapture guidance. Cursor-dependent and mutating calls are never cached. Snapshot files can contain proprietary analysis results and local paths, so REA keeps them local, writes them with owner-only permissions, and requires a separate approved root:
export REA_ANALYSIS_SNAPSHOT_ROOTS_JSON='["/absolute/path/to/analysis"]'
rea analyze /absolute/path/to/app --snapshot /absolute/path/to/analysis/app.json
# The same exact query can now be answered from the snapshot.
rea analyze /absolute/path/to/app --snapshot /absolute/path/to/analysis/app.json
Exact CLI evidence replays happen before any provider process starts. In MCP sessions,
pass snapshot_path to open_binary to import a snapshot atomically while
opening its matching target; MCP providers may still start before a cached call
is replayed. Pass snapshot_path and, when required, overwrite: true to
close_binary to save atomically before Hopper resources are released. If the
save fails, REA deliberately leaves the session open.
One prompt, a full investigation
Reverse engineer the Notes app. Find how offline search works, explain it,
and build a version for my project using TypeScript and SQLite.
REA gives the agent a clear path from that request to working code:
| Step | What the agent does | REA tools |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Opens and identifies the binary | open_binary, binary_overview |
| 2 | Finds likely offline-search clues | search_strings, search_procedures, list_names |
| 3 | Connects those clues to executable code | find_xrefs_to_name, xrefs, procedure_callers |
| 4 | Reconstructs the relevant control flow | get_call_graph, procedure_callees, procedure_info |
| 5 | Decompiles the relevant routines | procedure_pseudo_code, procedure_assembly, batch_decompile |
| 6 | Builds the feature in your project | code adapted to your stack, product, and requirements |
REA handles the app analysis in steps 1–5. The agent performs step 6 with its normal file-editing and test tools, using what it learned about the app.
What agents can do
- Investigate a feature you like and build a version tailored to your own product.
- Explain how a feature works when its source code is unavailable.
- Reconstruct an app's authentication, storage, update, or networking flow.
- Recover enough structure to document an undocumented format or interface.
- Trace a suspicious behavior from a string or symbol to the code that implements it.
- Run, checkpoint, resume, and reuse a content-addressed artifact investigation across two versions.
- Turn recovered behavior into product features, tests, migration notes, ports, or interoperable replacements.
- Analyze Swift and Objective-C metadata without manually untangling every mangled symbol.
- Leave names, comments, and bookmarks in Hopper so human and agent analysis reinforce each other.
Tool catalog for investigation
| Tool family | Count | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Native inspection | 33 | procedures, pseudocode, assembly, strings, names, segments, callers, callees, xrefs, annotations |
| Investigation workflows | 10 | binary_overview, analyze_function, batch_decompile, trace_feature, call graphs, Swift and Objective-C discovery |
| Native macOS utilities | 5 | Mach-O metadata, code signatures, plists, architectures, Swift demangling; Hopper-free and provenance-bearing |
| Artifact graph | 2 | deterministic directory, ZIP/APK/IPA, and ASAR inventory; explicitly selected extraction into an absent owned tree |
| Managed PE/CLI | 8 | PE/CLI identity, metadata members, CIL hashes, P/Invoke/native-boundary declarations and verification, application-graph projection, decompiler reconstruction import, token remapping, runtime-correlation plans, and version comparison |
| Browser observation | 8 | exact-origin CDP capture, bundle and source-map analysis, WebMCP discovery, session timelines, capture diff, and visual evidence |
| Electron analysis | 4 | passive root-confined observation, bounded static application mapping, and evidence-backed static/runtime reconciliation |
| Application workflows | 7 | bounded cross-layer traces, unique-only version matching, approved Linux-isolated extracted-module replay, managed-runtime characterization, and reconstruction coverage closure |
| Workspace and observation | 18 | target lifecycle, Evidence v2 bundles, process/artifact/function comparison, evidence-linked residual-unknown lifecycle |
The public interface describes what the agent is trying to learn. Providers decide how to answer. macOS utilities handle common semantic inspection without launching Hopper; Hopper handles deeper native analysis; the process harness implements controlled behavioral capture.
Current status
REA is already useful for native application, browser, and Electron investigation on supported macOS and Linux hosts, plus the bounded Windows Ghidra P0 described above:
- Open Mach-O, ELF, PE,
.app, ZIP, APK, IPA, ASAR, plist, JavaScript, source-map, and generic analysis-database targets; Hopper remains the only adapter that accepts legacy.hopdatabases. - Discover deep-analysis candidates without starting them, choose deterministically, and retain one immutable provider/profile binding until an explicit switch or close; provider failures never trigger transparent fallback.
- Attach to a user-owned Chrome-family browser over a configured loopback CDP endpoint; capture exact-origin web structure, safe metadata, approved value-free payload shapes, bundle/source-map evidence, WebMCP declarations, user-action timelines, capture diffs, and explicitly approved screenshots without navigation or JavaScript evaluation.
- Inspect Electron
file://renderer pages through a separate canonical-root permission boundary without invoking Electron APIs; script contents remain separately approved and byte bounded. - Validate and canonically serialize a provider-neutral JavaScript Application Graph v1 spanning packages, ASAR entries, Electron roles, JavaScript/source-map entities, browser/runtime instances, IPC, endpoints, storage, and native add-ons. This shipped domain contract performs no extraction or I/O by itself.
- Reconstruct bounded static package, entrypoint, Webpack/Rspack module, import, worker, endpoint, storage, source-map, BrowserWindow, preload, contextBridge, IPC, utility-process, and native-add-on structure from an approved local directory or ASAR through
analyze_javascript_applicationorrea analyze-javascript-application. The AST-only application service never executes bootstrap code, pairs only unique exact literal IPC channels, and reports dynamic or ambiguous channels as unresolved. - Reconcile that static graph with existing passive web or Electron Evidence through
reconcile_javascript_runtimeorrea reconcile-javascript-runtime. Exact captured bytes outrank caller-declared file/URL mappings; target, frame, script, worker, cache, and asset ambiguity stays explicit, source-map authority stays separate, and a module resident in an observed bundle is never reported as executed. See JavaScript static/runtime reconciliation. - Trace a literal route, string, API, IPC channel, module, or native export through authenticated application Evidence with explicit traversal bounds, then hand exact native artifact digests and requested exports to retained Ghidra or Hopper Evidence without automatic provider switching. Compare application versions using unique-only digest, source-map, structural, and semantic tiers; duplicate, incomplete, and truncated matches stay unknown. See cross-layer JavaScript application workflows.
- Classify PE/CLI managed artifacts with
inspect_managed_artifact/rea inspect-managed-artifact, inspect bounded metadata members, signatures, raw CIL hashes, limited decoded-instruction-tuple v1 hashes, separately reported exception regions, call edges, and field-access anchors withinspect_managed_members/rea inspect-managed-members, inventory declared ModuleRef/ImplMap/PInvoke and non-IL method boundary indicators withinspect_managed_native_boundaries/rea inspect-managed-native-boundaries, then compare two authenticated member observations withcompare_managed_members/rea compare-managed-members.verify_managed_native_boundaries/rea verify-managed-native-boundarieschecks managed P/Invoke declarations against authenticated native export or function Evidence while keeping verified, inferred, contradicted, and unresolved states distinct. The comparison treats build-local tokens as build-local and uses unique decoded-CIL/signature and structural method-shape tiers, never names alone; the v1 tuple hash does not itself resolve tokens or fully commit control flow.project_managed_application_graph/rea project-managed-application-graphprojects authenticated managed artifact/member/native-boundary Evidence into the existing application graph for cross-layer feature tracing.import_managed_reconstruction/rea import-managed-reconstructionadmits user-supplied decompiler C#/IL/pseudocode as analyst inference only after exact artifact SHA-256, MVID, signature, and the shipped v1 decoded-IL commitment match. Separately,plan_managed_runtime_correlation/rea plan-managed-runtime-correlationcan admit a default-disabled, permission-gated runtime-correlation plan locked to the same build evidence. These paths never load the assembly, resolve CLR dependencies, execute target code, run a decompiler, or translate managed tokens into native addresses; full normalized-CIL v2 semantics, native-body bridge mapping, and an actual runtime executor remain future managed-code contracts. - Configure
REA_ILSPY_CMD_PATH=/absolute/path/to/ilspycmdonly when you want doctor andverify:managedto inspect a bring-your-own ILSpy command as a real reconstruction oracle. REA does not install ILSpy and does not treat decompiler text as canonical metadata or CIL observation. - Traverse content-addressed artifact graphs without extraction; on macOS, read-only DMG traversal additionally requires
native_mount_approved: trueandREA_ARTIFACT_NATIVE_MOUNT_ENABLED=true. Materialize only approved occurrences into absent output roots. - Build bounded function dossiers with pseudocode, assembly, CFG edges, comments, calls, references, strings, and names.
- Search and trace features across symbols, strings, metadata, references, and call paths.
- Record every successful result as deterministic Evidence v2 with artifact and provider identity, confidence, authority, limitations, and locations.
- Export and import evidence bundles across sessions.
- Persist automatic cross-version artifact runs as canonical, lock-protected workspaces with tamper-evident revision commitments.
- Capture approved PTY scenarios as Process Capture v4 Evidence, including committed run manifests, raw and rendered terminal frames, scripted interactions, descendant settlement, named filesystem checkpoints, deterministic command shims, and loopback HTTP/WebSocket exchanges.
- Compare complete artifact inventories by stable path, content, metadata, and relations; incomplete evidence never implies equivalence.
- Compare explicit function dossiers across text, calls, references, strings, and address-normalized CFG topology with per-facet unknowns.
- Compare canonical Evidence bundles by exact membership, explicit observation pairs, and residual-unknown histories without turning omissions into behavioral absence.
- Aggregate runtime comparisons into observed behavior changes while keeping static artifact/function differences labeled as candidates.
- Build bounded, Evidence-cited direct call paths by exact address without treating missing dossiers as graph leaves.
- Correlate exact static/runtime findings through explicit hypotheses without claiming causality from cochange.
- Verify finite behavioral and structural reconstruction specifications with pass, fail, and unknown kept distinct.
- Track residual unknowns through immutable CAS revisions, evidence-qualified resolution, contradictions, probes, and validated dependency relationships.
- With explicit
unknown_registry_approved: true, record bounded trace/capture residuals, typed provider unavailability, and capture disagreements automatically. - Start six guided MCP workflows with live, session-aware completion for documents, procedures, providers, evidence, captures, artifact IDs, and active unknowns.
Hopper is the first provider, not the boundary of the project. Some current workflows still require Hopper and macOS; every evidence record identifies the provider and limitations behind its result.
Website observation with CDP
REA can inspect an already-running Chrome-family browser that you own. Browser observation is disabled by default and requires a literal loopback CDP endpoint plus exact approved page origins:
export REA_BROWSER_OBSERVE_ENABLED=true
export REA_BROWSER_CDP_ENDPOINTS_JSON='["http://127.0.0.1:9222"]'
export REA_BROWSER_ALLOWED_ORIGINS_JSON='["http://127.0.0.1:3000"]'
rea list-browser-targets http://127.0.0.1:9222 --approved --json
rea inspect-web-page http://127.0.0.1:9222 TARGET_ID --approved --json
All eight browser tools expose the same Evidence v2 contracts over CLI and MCP. Inspection is passive: REA does not evaluate page JavaScript, navigate, click, close the page, or close the browser. Query values, credentials, cookies, authorization headers, storage values, and raw JSON or WebSocket values are never retained. Separately approved captures can retain bounded redacted console primitives, value-free JSON/WebSocket shapes, script sources, accessibility text, or screenshot pixels. Existing activity before attach is explicitly unavailable. See Website observation with CDP for browser startup, schemas, limits, and the threat model.
Exact package, tool-family, provider, setup-client, public schema-version, and CLI facts are generated from source in docs/product-catalog.json. npm run docs:check verifies that this catalog, the narrative documentation, TypeDoc, and generated schemas have not drifted.
Roadmap
REA is growing into a toolkit for understanding software across static artifacts and observed behavior. The current status above is the shipped baseline; the items below are planned work.
Now
- Maintain truthful product metadata — extend the shipped canonical catalog and drift checks whenever versions, tools, providers, schemas, setup clients, or CLI capabilities change.
- Cross-provider conformance growth — add source-owned architectures and difficult indirect/thunk cases while preserving semantic comparison and provider-specific text boundaries.
Next
- Controlled replay conformance growth — extend the shipped Linux extracted-module sandbox with more source-owned hostile fixtures and cross-kernel conformance; browser or Electron interaction remains a different future authority.
- Broader application graph evidence — extend authenticated cross-layer traces with additional static extractors and separately approved runtime authorities.
- **Professional managed-code analy
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