IDA Chat C++ Plugin

A C++ port of the ida-chat-plugin - an AI-powered chat assistant for IDA Pro using Claude.

Overview

IDA Chat provides a dockable Qt-based chat interface for interacting with Claude AI during reverse engineering sessions. The agent can execute Python scripts in IDA's environment, analyze binary code, and provide intelligent assistance.

Features

• Dockable Chat UI: Qt-based interface that integrates with IDA Pro
• Claude Integration: Direct communication with Claude API via streaming
• Script Execution: Execute Python code in IDA's scripting environment
• Agentic Loop: Autonomous multi-turn conversations with script feedback
• Message History: Persistent JSONL-based session storage
• Transcript Export: Export conversations to HTML

Building

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.20+
• C++20 compatible compiler (GCC 10+, Clang 12+, MSVC 2019+)
• IDA Pro SDK (9.0+)
• libcurl
• Qt 5.15+ or Qt 6 (provided by IDA)

Build Steps

# Set IDA SDK path
export IDASDK=/path/to/idasdk

# Create build directory
mkdir build && cd build

# Configure
cmake ..

# Build
cmake --build .

# Install to IDA plugins directory
cmake --install . --prefix /path/to/ida/plugins

Build Options

• IDA_CHAT_BUILD_TESTS: Build unit tests (default: OFF)
• IDA_CHAT_USE_SYSTEM_CURL: Use system libcurl (default: ON)
• IDA_CHAT_USE_SYSTEM_JSON: Use system nlohmann_json (default: OFF)

Usage

1. Load the plugin in IDA Pro
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+C or use View menu to toggle the chat panel
3. Configure authentication in the setup wizard
4. Start chatting with Claude about your binary!

Authentication

IDA Chat supports three authentication methods:

1. System: Uses existing Claude Code authentication
2. OAuth: OAuth token-based authentication
3. API Key: Direct Anthropic API key

Architecture

The plugin follows a layered architecture:

1. Plugin Layer (plugin/): IDA plugin registration and action handlers
2. UI Layer (ui/): Qt widgets for the chat interface
3. Core Layer (core/): Chat engine with agentic loop
4. API Layer (api/): Claude API client with streaming support
5. History Layer (history/): JSONL session persistence

Key design patterns:

• PIMPL idiom for ABI stability
• Qt signals/slots for thread-safe UI updates
• Streaming HTTP for real-time responses
• SSE parsing for Claude's streaming format

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file.

Credits

Ported from ida-chat-plugin (Python).

Reference projects:

• chernobog - IDA deobfuscation plugin patterns
• structor - IDA structure synthesis patterns