apple-firmware-inspector

apple-firmware-inspector is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Xopoko/build-swift-apps. It costs 49 tokens per session (732 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool for examining and reverse-engineering Apple firmware files, including operating-system images, kernels, shared libraries, and compiled binaries. IPSW is Apple's packaged firmware format for its devices.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to download and unpack firmware, inspect kernel extensions and binaries, examine dynamic libraries, find references, and investigate security internals.
Why use it?
It provides commands for finding symbols, disassembling code, extracting components, and inspecting low-level system details.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for Claude Code and Codex: shipped in a Claude Code plugin, but also agents/openai.yaml present.

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is ipsw dyld extract "$DSC" Some.framework/Some -o ./out/.

Part of the build-swift-apps plugin — 61 skills, 3 commands, 3 MCP servers shipped together

Good fit Use it to download and unpack firmware, inspect kernel extensions and binaries, examine dynamic libraries, find references, and investigate security internals.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Xopoko/build-swift-apps
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/xopoko/build-swift-apps/apple-firmware-inspector

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install build-swift-apps, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 61 skills, 3 commands, 3 MCP servers.

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 apple-firmware-inspector

README.md
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Your own site
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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.

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Your own site · 80×15
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Per session 49 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 732 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. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 5.1 $0.00049 $0.00732
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.00366
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00146
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00073

Measured 12d ago against content hash e2ef5eb3e13f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

apple-firmware-inspector 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 12d 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.

skills/apple-firmware-inspector/SKILL.md · 87 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 87 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Apple Firmware Inspector

Install: brew install blacktop/tap/ipsw.

When a device target is needed, resolve current identifiers with ipsw device-list or live data. Do not copy stale iPhone identifiers.

Workflows

Firmware:

ipsw download ipsw --device "$DEVICE" --latest
ipsw download ipsw --device "$DEVICE" --latest --kernel --dyld
ipsw extract --kernel "$LATEST_IPSW"
ipsw extract --dyld --dyld-arch arm64e "$LATEST_IPSW"
ipsw extract --kernel --remote <IPSW_URL>

Userspace / dyld shared cache:

DSC=/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_arm64e
ipsw dyld a2s "$DSC" 0xADDR
ipsw dyld symaddr "$DSC" "_symbol" --image Some.framework/Some
ipsw dyld disass "$DSC" --vaddr 0xADDR
ipsw dyld disass "$DSC" --symbol "_symbol" --image Some.framework/Some
ipsw dyld xref "$DSC" 0xADDR --all
ipsw dyld dump "$DSC" 0xADDR --size 256
ipsw dyld str "$DSC" "pattern" --image Some.framework/Some
ipsw dyld objc --class "$DSC" --image Some.framework/Some
ipsw dyld extract "$DSC" Some.framework/Some -o ./out/

Kernel/KEXT:

ipsw kernel kexts kernelcache.release.$DEVICE
ipsw kernel extract kernelcache sandbox --output ./kexts/
ipsw kernel syscall kernelcache
ipsw kernel kexts --diff "kernelcache_old" "kernelcache_new"

Entitlements:

ipsw macho info --ent /path/to/binary
ipsw ent --sqlite ent.db --ipsw "$LATEST_IPSW"
ipsw ent --sqlite ent.db --key "com.apple.private.security.no-sandbox"

Class dump:

ipsw class-dump "$DSC" SpringBoardServices --headers -o ./headers/
ipsw class-dump "$DSC" Security --class SecKey
ipsw class-dump "$DSC" UIKit --class 'UIApplication.*' --headers -o ./headers/
ipsw class-dump "$DSC" Security --re

Mach-O:

ipsw macho info /path/to/binary
ipsw macho disass /path/to/binary --symbol _main
ipsw macho info --sig /path/to/binary

Tips

  • First a2s/symaddr creates cache; later lookups are faster.
  • Use --image <DYLIB> for DSC operations; it is much faster.
  • Most commands support --json for scripting.

Read the full file on GitHub · 87 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 12d ago First seen · 87 lines · 49 tokens per session scan A e2ef5eb3e13f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

apple-firmware-inspector is a skill published in the GitHub repository Xopoko/build-swift-apps (45 stars, last pushed 15d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 49 tokens to every session and 732 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. 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 2026-08-30.

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