Headless ghidra

Headless Ghidra — Global Orchestrator

This skill is the workflow coordinator for the skill family. It defines the P0–P4 sequence, dispatch rules, and artifact hand-off points. ghidra-agent-cli remains the tool reference for command syntax and YAML artifact semantics.

Required Shared Tool Contract

• ghidra-agent-cli is the mandatory shared interface for supported workspace, metadata, Ghidra, Frida, progress, validation, and gate operations.
• Phase skills must name the exact ghidra-agent-cli subcommands they use.
• Lower-level shell scripts and Java helpers are backend details. They must not replace the CLI as the primary interface when the CLI already supports the action.
• All workflow artifacts must live under artifacts/<target-id>/.
• YAML artifacts must be created, updated, and validated by ghidra-agent-cli.
• The CLI must not automatically create git commits.
• Gate transitions require relevant artifacts to exist on disk and be ready for user review.
• All Ghidra project operations must go through ghidra-agent-cli. If the CLI lacks a required capability, pause and ask the user before creating or running a new Ghidra script.

Pipeline

P0 Intake → P1 Baseline+Runtime → P2 Third-Party → [P3 Metadata Enrichment → P4 Function Substitution]*

Phase	Skill	Purpose	Primary outputs
P0	headless-ghidra-intake	Initialize target workspace, discover prerequisites, and define scope	pipeline-state.yaml, scope.yaml, targets/<id>/ghidra-projects/
P1	headless-ghidra-baseline	Run Ghidra import/analysis, export baseline YAML, and prepare runtime observations	baseline/*.yaml, runtime/run-manifest.yaml, runtime/run-records/*.yaml, runtime/hotpaths/call-chain.yaml
P2	headless-ghidra-evidence	Identify and record third-party libraries and pristine sources	third-party/identified.yaml, third-party/pristine/<library>@<version>/, third-party/compat/<library>@<version>/
P3	headless-ghidra-discovery	Enrich names, signatures, types, constants, strings, and selected hotpath metadata	metadata/*.yaml, metadata/apply-records/
P4	headless-ghidra-batch-decompile	Substitute selected functions through metadata application and Ghidra decompilation	substitution/next-batch.yaml, substitution/functions/<fn_id>/

Shared Artifact Contract

All phases work inside this active workspace layout:

targets/<target-id>/ghidra-projects/

artifacts/<target-id>/
├── pipeline-state.yaml
├── scope.yaml
├── intake/
├── baseline/
├── runtime/
│   ├── project/
│   ├── fixtures/
│   ├── run-manifest.yaml
│   ├── run-records/
│   └── hotpaths/call-chain.yaml
├── third-party/
│   ├── identified.yaml
│   ├── pristine/<library>@<version>/
│   └── compat/<library>@<version>/
├── metadata/
│   ├── renames.yaml
│   ├── signatures.yaml
│   ├── types.yaml
│   ├── constants.yaml
│   ├── strings.yaml
│   └── apply-records/
├── substitution/
│   ├── template/
│   ├── next-batch.yaml
│   └── functions/<fn_id>/
└── gates/

The orchestrator treats pipeline-state.yaml as the current target-level state record and relies on the phase-owned YAML artifacts above for hand-offs.

Orchestrator Responsibilities

1. Detect or resume the active target.
2. Read artifacts/<target-id>/pipeline-state.yaml.
3. Dispatch the correct phase skill for the current stage.
4. Run ghidra-agent-cli gate check --phase ... at each transition.
5. Advance phase state only after the gate passes.
6. Handle user dialogs such as resume/restart, optional Frida supplementation, batch confirmation, divergence review, and completion.

Gate Policy

• P0–P4 are the only primary pipeline transitions.
• ghidra-agent-cli gate check is the authoritative gate validation for all pipeline phases (P0–P4). The legacy gate-check.sh has been removed.

Required ghidra-agent-cli Commands

• ghidra-agent-cli context use
• ghidra-agent-cli context show
• ghidra-agent-cli context clear
• ghidra-agent-cli workspace state show
• ghidra-agent-cli workspace state set-phase
• ghidra-agent-cli gate check
• ghidra-agent-cli validate
• ghidra-agent-cli progress compute-next-batch
• ghidra-agent-cli progress show

Strict Prohibitions

• Must not execute analysis work itself.
• Must not edit baseline, evidence, decompilation, or verification artifacts directly except for explicit state updates it owns.
• Must not bypass ghidra-agent-cli for supported state, progress, context, validation, or gate operations.
• Must not accept alternate decompilation backends in place of Ghidra.
• Must not create git commits automatically.
• Must not create or run new Ghidra scripts when the CLI lacks a capability; pause and ask the user first.

Next Skill Routing

• P0 complete → headless-ghidra-baseline
• P1 complete → headless-ghidra-evidence
• P2 complete → headless-ghidra-discovery
• P3 complete → headless-ghidra-batch-decompile
• P4 complete for all selected functions → either loop back to P3 or finish

Independent Skills

The following skills operate outside the P0–P4 pipeline and can be invoked directly:

Skill	Purpose	Invocation
headless-ghidra-analyze-function	Thorough single-function analysis following the strict five-step recovery order: types → constants → vtables → function identity → decompilation. Use when you need complete analysis of one specific function with full type/constant/vtable context before decompilation results are interpreted.	Invoked when user asks to "analyze this function thoroughly", "decompile function at 0x... with full context", or requests complete per-function analysis.