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CyberChef MCP Server

GCHQ CyberChef as tools an AI assistant can call: 504 operations for encryption, encoding, compression and forensics, plus sixteen analysis tools that an operation cannot express.

docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/doublegate/cyberchef-mcp_v3:latest

The -i is not optional. Without it the container exits immediately and your client reports the server as failed — see Troubleshooting.

Where things live

Three documentation surfaces, deliberately different:

What it is When to use it
Documentation site The authoritative reference. Generated from docs/ and from the server's own OperationConfig, so it cannot disagree with the code. Looking up an operation, an argument name, or a type.
This wiki The practical layer — setup, operations, worked examples, the reasoning behind decisions. "How do I actually do X", and "why does it behave like that".
Repository docs ADRs, findings logs, release notes, planning. Understanding why something is the way it is, in detail.

If the site and this wiki ever disagree, the site is right and this wiki needs fixing.

Start here

Installation Docker, npm, or from source
Client Setup Claude Code, Claude Desktop, LM Studio, Cursor, MCP Inspector
The Tool Surface Why you see 40 tools and not 543 — the most common question
Analysis Tools XOR key length, cyclic patterns, hash identification, RSA attacks
Troubleshooting The failures people actually hit, and what causes them

What makes this different from running CyberChef in a browser

  • The model calls it directly. No copy-paste between a chat window and a web app.
  • cyberchef_bake runs whole recipes, so a five-step decode is one call rather than five.
  • Analysis, not just transformation. An operation is a pure run(input, args) over one input. The analysis tools score forty candidate key lengths, factor a modulus four ways, or match a hash against a table of structures — none of which a recipe can express, because a recipe is a pipeline, not a loop.
  • Bounded and observable. Timeouts, quotas, rate limits, caching, and optional telemetry, none of which a browser tab has.

Reporting problems

  • Bugs and questions: open an issue
  • Security: report privately — please do not open a public issue for a vulnerability. Private vulnerability reporting is enabled on this repository. See Security.
  • Something in CyberChef itself (anything under src/core/): that is upstream code. Report it to gchq/CyberChef, and note that their policy forbids a public issue for a vulnerability — use their private reporting or CyberChefSecurity@gchq.gov.uk.

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