What is ios-reverse-engineering?

A rule for examining iOS app files, such as IPA packages, app bundles, and compiled libraries, by following a defined ten-step process.

Use it when extracting files, checking dependencies, examining app structure, or reverse engineering iOS binaries and libraries.

It provides a repeatable path for unpacking and inspecting unfamiliar iOS software instead of leaving the investigation to ad-hoc commands.

ios-reverse-engineering — Cursor rule for Cursor by anatoly505

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills

Made for: Cursor.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills/ios-reverse-engineering/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills/ios-reverse-engineering)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills/ios-reverse-engineering"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills/ios-reverse-engineering/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills/ios-reverse-engineering"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills/ios-reverse-engineering.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.

When invoked 1,165 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00000	$0.01165
Opus 5.5	$0.00000	$0.00466
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00000	$0.00233
Haiku 4.5	$0.00000	$0.00117

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 2eff6d019536, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ios-reverse-engineering scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

agents/cursor/.cursor/rules/ios-reverse-engineering.mdc · 107 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 107 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

iOS Reverse Engineering Skill (Cursor)

Use this rule whenever the user asks to extract, analyze, or reverse engineer an iOS app — IPA, .app bundle, Mach-O, .dylib, or .framework.

You drive a 10-phase workflow. The full reference is in ${IOS_RE_SKILL_ROOT}/METHODOLOGY.md. By default ${IOS_RE_SKILL_ROOT} resolves to the skill/ directory of ios-reverse-skills checked out in or linked from the workspace (e.g. tools/ios-reverse-skills/skill). If unsure, ask the user where the repo is.

Tooling

Required: ipsw (brew install blacktop/tap/ipsw), otool, strings, unzip. Recommended: radare2 / rizin, Ghidra (set GHIDRA_INSTALL_DIR).

Always start with:

bash ${IOS_RE_SKILL_ROOT}/scripts/check-deps.sh

For each INSTALL_REQUIRED:<dep> line, run bash ${IOS_RE_SKILL_ROOT}/scripts/install-dep.sh <dep> and re-check.

10-Phase Workflow

Verify deps — check-deps.sh then install-dep.sh as needed.
Extract & class-dump — extract-ipa.sh [opts] <file> (handles IPA, .app, Mach-O, .dylib, .framework). Options: -o, --no-classdump, --thin <arch>, --swift-demangle.
Analyze structure — read Info.plist, entitlements.plist, class-dump/, frameworks/. Identify architecture (MVC / MVVM / VIPER / Coordinator).
Trace call flows — AppDelegate / @main App → ViewController → ViewModel/Presenter → Service/Repository → API client → URLSession / Alamofire. Use class-dump headers as anchors when symbols are mangled.
API extraction — find-api-calls.sh <output>/ --context 3 --dedup --report report.md. Targeted: --urlsession --alamofire --graphql --websocket --auth --urls --swift-concurrency --security.
Security audit — find-api-calls.sh <output>/ --security --context 3. Flag ATS exceptions, disabled cert pinning, hardcoded secrets, weak crypto, keychain misuse, jailbreak-detection bypass, debug artifacts.
Cloud secrets — deep-secret-scan.sh <output>/ --report secrets-report.md. Targeted: --firebase --aws --gcp --azure --payments --messaging --analytics --jwt --severity high. Classify each finding (service, client-safety, blast radius, false-positive likelihood, validation, remediation).
Deep reversing — reversing-analyze.sh <main-binary> -o <output>/reversing. Variants: --quick --secrets --network --crypto --auth --decompile <sym> --decompile-pattern <regex> --xrefs <sym> --callgraph <sym> --entropy --tool ghidra. With --tool ghidra, the bundled Java scripts run automatically.
SDK fingerprinting — detect-sdks.sh <output>/ --check-cves --report sdks-report.md.
Protections — detect-protections.sh <output>/ --report protections-report.md. Targeted: --obfuscation --debugger --injection --integrity --jailbreak --encryption. Score 0–20.

Read the full file on GitHub · 107 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2mo ago First seen · 107 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 2eff6d019536

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ios-reverse-engineering is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository anatoly505/ios-reverse-skills (15 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed Unlicense. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,165 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Mobile Security ai-agents claude cursor ghidra ios ipa

ios-reverse-engineering

Getting it into your agent

Wrote this? Show the measurements

What it costs to keep this loaded

Grade A, and why

Nothing flagged

How it starts

iOS Reverse Engineering Skill (Cursor)

Tooling

10-Phase Workflow

What this file has done since we first saw it

Other cursor rules, from other repositories

create-ios-release

with-ios

ipa-upload-automation

main-refactoring-rules

with-ddd-swift

clean-architecture-swift