REA Tool Enables AI Agents to Reverse Engineer Software for Analysis and Modification

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.