ipsw-skill

A Claude Code skill for Apple firmware and binary reverse engineering using the ipsw CLI tool.

What This Skill Provides

This skill empowers Claude to assist with:

• Disassembling functions in dyld_shared_cache and Mach-O binaries
• Dumping Objective-C headers from private frameworks
• Downloading IPSWs/OTAs and extracting kernelcaches
• Analyzing entitlements across iOS/macOS binaries
• KEXT extraction and analysis from kernelcaches
• Tracking changes between iOS/macOS versions

Installation

Prerequisites

Install the ipsw CLI tool:

brew install blacktop/tap/ipsw

Claude Code

Install the marketplace:

claude plugin marketplace add blacktop/ipsw-skill

Install the plugin:

claude plugin install ipsw

Or install manually by cloning:

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/blacktop/ipsw-skill /tmp/ipsw-skill

# User-wide (available in all projects)
mv /tmp/ipsw-skill/skills/ipsw ~/.claude/skills/ipsw

# Project-specific (check into your repo)
mv /tmp/ipsw-skill/skills/ipsw .claude/skills/ipsw

Codex CLI

Use the built-in $skill-installer to install from GitHub:

$skill-installer https://github.com/blacktop/ipsw-skill

Or install manually by copying the skill folder:

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/blacktop/ipsw-skill /tmp/ipsw-skill

# User-wide (available in all projects)
mv /tmp/ipsw-skill/skills/ipsw ~/.codex/skills/

# Or project-specific (check into your repo)
mv /tmp/ipsw-skill/skills/ipsw .codex/skills/

Note: Run Codex with --enable skills if skills aren't loading automatically.

Usage Examples

Once installed, Claude will automatically use this skill when you ask about Apple reverse engineering tasks:

"Disassemble the _malloc function from the system dyld_shared_cache"

"Dump the Objective-C headers for SpringBoardServices"

"Download the latest IPSW for iPhone 15 Pro and extract the kernel"

"Find all binaries with the platform-application entitlement in iOS 18"

"Extract the sandbox KEXT from this kernelcache"

"What classes in Security.framework handle keychain operations?"

Skill Contents

.claude-plugin/
└── marketplace.json            # Marketplace configuration
skills/
└── ipsw/
    ├── SKILL.md                # Core workflows and quick reference
    └── references/
        ├── dyld.md             # dyld_shared_cache analysis commands
        ├── macho.md            # Mach-O binary analysis commands
        ├── kernel.md           # Kernel & KEXT analysis commands
        ├── download.md         # Firmware download & extraction
        ├── class-dump.md       # ObjC header dumping
        └── entitlements.md     # Entitlements database & queries

Resources

• ipsw Documentation
• ipsw GitHub
• Discord Community

License

MIT