apktool

apktool-mcp-server is a MCP server that integrates Apk Tool with Model Context Protocol to provide live reverse engineering support powered by LLMs. It exposes a suite of static analysis and reverse engineering tools that operate on decoded APKTool projects, enabling context-aware code reviews, vulnerability checks, and project manipulation. Available capabilities include generating APK builds from decoded projects, extracting and inspecting AndroidManifest.xml, examining apktool.yml configurations, enumerating and inspecting smali files and resources, and applying targeted modifications to smali or resource files. The server is designed to be driven by MCP clients (such as Claude-based workflows or the Zin MCP Client) to perform automated analysis, code review, and vulnerability detection in real time as you iterate on reverse engineering tasks. Tools like get_manifest, list_smali_files, modify_smali_file, and search_in_file help you inspect and alter APKTool projects in a structured, repeatable way.

Prerequisites:\n- Python 3.10+ (per project badge)\n- APKTool installed and available in PATH\n- Optional: uv (Astral Sh) for Python dependency management as described in the docs.\n\nStep-by-step installation:\n1) Install APKTool system-wide (if not already installed):\nbash\n# Follow official instructions to install apktool\nhttps://apktool.org/docs/install\n\n2) Acquire the apktool-mcp-server code (clone or download release):\nbash\ngit clone https://github.com/zinja-coder/apktool-mcp-server.git\ncd apktool-mcp-server\n\n3) Install and set up uv for dependency management (as described in the README):\nbash\n# Install uv (if not present)\ncurl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh\nuv venv\nsource .venv/bin/activate # or .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows\nuv pip install httpx fastmcp\n\n4) Install additional Python dependencies (if not automatically installed):\nbash\nuv pip install -r requirements.txt\n\n5) Run the server (see MCP client guidance in the repo):\nbash\npython apktool_mcp_server.py # or the command your environment specifies\n

Tips and common issues:\n- Ensure APKTool is correctly installed and accessible in your system PATH. The server relies on APKTool for decoding and analyzing APKs.\n- If you encounter dependency issues in uv, re-create the virtual environment and reinstall dependencies with the uv commands shown above.\n- The MCP tools provided (e.g., decode_apk, get_manifest, list_smali_files, modify_smali_file) are designed to operate on a decoded APKTool project workspace. Use decode_apk to initialize a project before applying other operations.\n- When using Claude Desktop or the Zin MCP Client, configure the mcpServers entry to point to your uv-based runtime (as shown in the installation snippet). Ensure you expose correct paths to the uv process and the project workspace.\n- Environment variables like UV_VENV can be used to control virtual environment usage; adjust per your deployment strategy.\n- If you plan to run multiple MCP servers, isolate their workspaces to prevent cross-project contamination.\n- Check apktool.yml and AndroidManifest.xml outputs for sensitive permissions and potential misconfigurations during analysis.