apktool-mcp-server (Part of Zin's Reverse Engineering MCP Suite)

⚡ Fully automated MCP server built on top of apktool to analyze Android APKs using LLMs like Claude — uncover vulnerabilities, parse manifests, and reverse engineer effortlessly.

Image generated using AI tools.

🤖 What is apktool-mcp-server?

apktool-mcp-server is a MCP server for the Apk Tool that integrates directly with Model Context Protocol (MCP) to provide live reverse engineering support with LLMs like Claude.

Think: "Decompile → Context-Aware Code Review → AI Recommendations" — all in real time.

Watch the demo!

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d50251b8-6b1c-4341-b18e-ae54eb24a847

• Solving the CTFs

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c783a604-a636-4e70-9fa8-37e3d219b20b

Other projects in Zin MCP Suite

• JADX-AI-MCP
• JADX-MCP-Server
• ZIN-MCP-Client

Current MCP Tools

The following MCP tools are available:

• build_apk() — Build an APK from a decoded APKTool Project.
• get_manifest() — Get the AndroidManifest.xml content from a decoded APK project.
• get_apktool_yml() — Get apktool.yml information from a decoded APK project.
• list_smali_directories() — List all smali directories in a project.
• list_smali_files() — List smali files in a specific smali directory, optinally filtered by package prefix.
• get_smali_file() — Get content of a specific smali file by class name.
• modify_smali_file() — Modify the content of a specific smali file.
• list_resources() — List resources in a project, optionally filtered by resource type.
• get_resource_file() — Get Content of a specific resource file.
• modify_resource_file() — Modify the content of a specific resource file.
• search_in_file() — Search for a pattern in files with specified extensions.
• clean_project() — Clean a project directory to prepare for rebuilding.
• decode_apk() — Decode an APK file using APKTool, extracting resources and smali code.

🗒️ Sample Prompts

🔍 Basic Code Understanding

• “List all smali directories for the dvac project.”

• “Show me all the smali files under the package prefix com.vulnerable.component in the dvac project.”

• “Get the smali code for the class com.vulnerable.component.MainActivity.”

• “Compare MainActivity.smali with its previous version and show differences.”

• “Search for usage of startActivity in smali files of dvac project.”

🛡️ Vulnerability Detection

• “Analyze declared permissions in the dvac AndroidManifest.xml and flag dangerous ones.”

• “Search for hardcoded URLs or IPs in all .xml and .smali files in the project.”

• “Find all uses of PendingIntent.getActivity in smali files.”

• “Check for exported activities or receivers in dvac’s AndroidManifest.xml.”

• “List all smali files that access android.permission.SEND_SMS or READ_CONTACTS.”

🛠️ Reverse Engineering Helpers

• “Decode this APK: dvac.apk and create a project called dvac.”

• “Create a new APKTool project called test-harness.”

• “Clean the dvac project before rebuild.”

• “Extract DEX files from dvac project for external analysis.”

• “Modify MainActivity.smali to insert a log line at the beginning of onCreate().”

📦 Static Analysis

• “Get the complete AndroidManifest.xml from dvac project.”

• “Show the contents of apktool.yml for the dvac project.”

• “List all resource files of type layout.”

• “Search for the word password in all resource and smali files.”

• “Check which permissions are used and compare them against typical over-permissioning risks.”

🤖 AI Code Modification

• “Modify the onCreate() method in MainActivity.smali to add a toast message.”

• “Replace all http:// links with https:// in strings.xml.”

• “Add the android:exported=false attribute to all activities in the AndroidManifest.xml.”

• “Patch the method validateLogin in LoginManager.smali to always return true.”

• “Add logging statements to every method in MainActivity.smali.”

📄 Documentation & Metadata

• “List all decoded APKTool projects in the workspace.”

• “Show me the apktool.yml config to review the version, original APK metadata, and compression settings.”

• “Get all available Android devices connected via ADB. (To be migrated to ADB MCP Server.)”

• “Get metadata about the project dvac from its apktool.yml.”

• “Check which APKTool version is currently installed on the server.”

🛠️ Getting Started

1. Downlaod from Releases: https://github.com/zinja-coder/apktool-mcp-server/releases

# 0. Download and install apktool
https://apktool.org/docs/install

# 1. Test whether apktool has been correctly configured in the environment variables
$ apktool -version

# 2. Download the apktool-mcp-server-<version>.zip
https://github.com/zinja-coder/apktool-mcp-server/releases

# 3. 
unzip apktool-mcp-server-<version>.zip

├apktool-mcp-server/
  ├── apktool_mcp_server.py
  ├── requirements.txt
  ├── README.md
  ├── LICENSE

# 4. Navigate to apktool-mcp-server directory
cd apktool-mcp-server

# 5. This project uses uv - https://github.com/astral-sh/uv instead of pip for dependency management.
    ## a. Install uv (if you dont have it yet)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
    ## b. OPTIONAL, if for any reasons, you get dependecy errors in apktool-mcp-server, Set up the environment
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # or .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
    ## c. OPTIONAL Install dependencies
uv pip install httpx fastmcp

# The setup for apktool-mcp-server is done.

2. Running on Local LLM Using Ollama and Zin MCP Client - Recommended

⚡ Lightweight, Fast, Simple, CLI-Based MCP Client for STDIO MCP Servers, to fill the gap and provide bridge between your local LLMs running Ollama and MCP Servers.

Check Now: https://github.com/zinja-coder/zin-mcp-client

Demo: Coming soon...

🤖 3. Claude Desktop Setup

Make sure Claude Desktop is running with MCP enabled.

For instance, I have used following for Kali Linux: https://github.com/aaddrick/claude-desktop-debian

Configure and add MCP server to LLM file:

nano ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

And following content in it:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apktool-mcp-server": {
            "command": "/<path>/<to>/uv", 
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "</PATH/TO/>apktool-mcp-server/",
                "run",
                "apktool_mcp_server.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Replace:

• path/to/uv with the actual path to your uv executable
• path/to/apktool-mcp-server with the absolute path to where you cloned this repository

Then, navigate code and interact via real-time code review prompts using the built-in integration.

4. Cherry Studio Setup

If you want to configure the MCP tool in Cherry Studio, you can refer to the following configuration.

• Type: stdio
• command: uv
• argument:

--directory
path/to/apktool-mcp-server
run
apktool_mcp_server.py

• path/to/apktool-mcp-server with the absolute path to where you cloned this repository

To report bugs, issues, feature suggestion, Performance issue, general question, Documentation issue.

• Kindly open an issue with respective template.

• Tested on Claude Desktop Client, support for other AI will be tested soon!

🙏 Credits

This project is a MCP Server for Apktool, an amazing open-source Android reverse engineering tool created and maintained by @iBotPeaches. All core APK decoding and resource processing logic belongs to them. I have only extended it to support my MCP server with AI capabilities.

📎 Original README (Apktool)

The original README.md from Apktool is included here in this repository for reference and credit.

Also huge thanks to @aaddrick for developing Claude desktop for Debian based Linux.

And in last, thanks to @anthropics for developing the Model Context Protocol and @FastMCP team.

And all open source project maintainers and contributos which provies libraries and dependencies to make project like this possible.

📄 License

apktool-mcp-server and all related projects inherits the Apache 2.0

⚖️ Legal War