● Covered by 2 sources · 2 reportsLow impact2 neutral
REA Tool Enables AI Agents to Reverse Engineer Software for Analysis and Modification
Key points
- REA gives AI agents tools to inspect software.
- Agents can understand, change, or rebuild features.
- Demonstrated with Chrome's dinosaur game speed.
- Also used to analyze Windows Calculator's % button.
- REA is an open-source project with over 200K GitHub stars.
- REA integrates with Ghidra, Hopper, and IDA.
- REA uses MCP servers to expose reverse-engineering tools to agents.
- REA supports static analysis of JavaScript, Electron applications, and .NET assemblies.
- REA runs locally.
- REA traced Notion’s Electron clipboard implementation.
- REA reconstructed a sound-panning function from DX-Ball, matching 3205 x86 cases and 63 function bytes.
- REA recovered bullet-ring angle calculations from the 16-bit code of Touhou 4.
Introducing REA for Coding Agents
REA (Reverse – Engineer Anything) is a new tool designed to equip AI coding agents with the ability to perform reverse engineering. It allows agents to inspect software programs and explain how they function. The primary goal is to enable agents to understand a software feature well enough to explain it, modify it, or rebuild it from scratch.
How REA Works
REA provides agents with the necessary tools to examine a program's internal workings. This process involves analyzing the program itself to deduce its operational logic. Users can set up REA by running a command, which connects it to their coding agent and prepares it for inspection tasks.
Practical Applications: Game and Calculator Analysis
The utility of REA is demonstrated through two examples. In the first, REA inspects Chrome's dinosaur game to determine why the dinosaur's speed increases. The agent identifies the acceleration rule, including starting speed, increment per update, and maximum speed. This information then allows for the creation of a new game with adjustable speed.
The second example involves Windows Calculator, where REA is used to understand the behavior of its percentage button. This analysis helps in recovering the rules for operations like "200 + 10%" which results in "220".
Technical Inspection Process
For the dinosaur game, REA inspected the HTTP browser edition via a local debugging connection. It returned the loaded `index.js` file, including its source and digest. The agent then read the update function and speed settings to reconstruct the game's acceleration logic. Controlled browser checks were performed to verify the speed changes over time.
Updates
- REA is an open-source project with over 200K GitHub stars.
- REA integrates with Ghidra, Hopper, and IDA.
- REA uses MCP servers to expose reverse-engineering tools to agents.
- REA supports static analysis of JavaScript, Electron applications, and .NET assemblies.
- REA runs locally.
- REA traced Notion’s Electron clipboard implementation.
- REA reconstructed a sound-panning function from DX-Ball, matching 3205 x86 cases and 63 function bytes.
- REA recovered bullet-ring angle calculations from the 16-bit code of Touhou 4.
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Primary sources
GitHub morluto/rea GitHub wayou/t-rex-runner GitHub microsoft/calculator GitHub drasaadmoosa/rea---Reverse-Engineer-Anything GitHub NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra GitHub HendrikReh/hopper_reverse_toolkitHow outlets covered it
The open-source project Reverse Engineer Anything (REA) integrates AI coding agents with reverse-engineering tools like Ghidra, Hopper, and IDA. This allows AI agents to inspect compiled binaries, trace function calls, and analyze application features, potentially accelerating binary analysis workflows.
REA (Reverse – Engineer Anything) is a new tool that provides AI coding agents with capabilities to inspect software and explain its functionality. This allows agents to understand, modify, or rebuild software features by examining the program's code directly. The tool demonstrates its use by analyzing the speed mechanics of Chrome's dinosaur game and the percentage calculation in Windows Calculator.