apktool

apktool is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from BrownFineSecurity/iothackbot. It costs 44 tokens per session (3,314 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An Android app unpacking and rebuilding tool for examining APK files, which are the installable packages used by Android apps. It decodes app resources, the manifest, and compiled code into inspectable files.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to unpack APKs, read XML layouts and strings, inspect images and permissions, examine smali code, and rebuild modified app packages.
Why use it?
It removes the need to inspect an APK as an opaque archive when investigating how an app is built, what permissions it requests, or whether it contains security problems.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the iothackbot plugin — 13 skills shipped together

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/brownfinesecurity/iothackbot/apktool
Any agent
npx skills add BrownFineSecurity/iothackbot --skill apktool
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BrownFineSecurity/iothackbot

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install iothackbot, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 13 skills.

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.

agentmods badge for apktool

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/brownfinesecurity/iothackbot/apktool.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/brownfinesecurity/iothackbot/apktool)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/brownfinesecurity/iothackbot/apktool"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/brownfinesecurity/iothackbot/apktool.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 44 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,314 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00044 $0.03314
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.01657
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00663
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00331

Measured 4d ago against content hash 47d5cd84aa33, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

apktool scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 4d 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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

- Use extracted URLs with curl/wget for testing
skills/apktool/SKILL.md · 490 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 490 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Apktool - Android APK Unpacking and Resource Extraction

You are helping the user reverse engineer Android APK files using apktool for security analysis, vulnerability discovery, and understanding app internals.

Tool Overview

Apktool is a tool for reverse engineering Android APK files. It can decode resources to nearly original form and rebuild them after modifications. It's essential for:

  • Extracting readable AndroidManifest.xml
  • Decoding resources (XML layouts, strings, images)
  • Disassembling DEX to smali code
  • Analyzing app structure and permissions
  • Repackaging modified APKs

Prerequisites

  • apktool must be installed on the system
  • Java Runtime Environment (JRE) required
  • Sufficient disk space (unpacked APK is typically 2-5x original size)
  • Write permissions in output directory

Instructions

1. Basic APK Unpacking (Most Common)

When the user asks to unpack, decode, or analyze an APK:

Standard decode command:

apktool d <apk-file> -o <output-directory>

Example:

apktool d app.apk -o app-unpacked

With force overwrite (if directory exists):

apktool d app.apk -o app-unpacked -f

2. Understanding Output Structure

After unpacking, the output directory contains:

app-unpacked/
├── AndroidManifest.xml          # Readable manifest (permissions, components)
├── apktool.yml                  # Apktool metadata (version info, SDK levels)
├── original/                    # Original META-INF certificates
│   └── META-INF/
├── res/                         # Decoded resources
│   ├── layout/                  # XML layouts
│   ├── values/                  # Strings, colors, dimensions
│   ├── drawable/                # Images and drawables
│   └── ...
├── smali/                       # Disassembled DEX code (smali format)
│   └── com/company/app/        # Package structure
├── assets/                      # App assets (if present)
├── lib/                         # Native libraries (if present)
│   ├── arm64-v8a/
│   ├── armeabi-v7a/
│   └── ...
└── unknown/                     # Files apktool couldn't classify

Read the full file on GitHub · 490 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.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 490 lines · 44 tokens per session scan A 47d5cd84aa33

Subscribe to this mod's changes

apktool is a skill published in the GitHub repository BrownFineSecurity/iothackbot (825 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 44 tokens to every session and 3,314 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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