mcp-hayabusa

Project layout

• server.py — the MCP server entry point; both tools are defined here

• requirements.txt — Python dependencies (mcp, pyyaml)

• hayabusa/ — the Hayabusa binary, rule set, and config, installed by scripts/download_hayabusa.py (gitignored; not checked in)

• scripts/download_hayabusa.py — downloads the latest Hayabusa release for the current platform and extracts it into hayabusa/

• samples/ — sample EVTX files for manual testing (e.g. sysmon_lsass_mimikatz.evtx)

• .mcp.json — registers the hayabusa MCP server (python server.py) for this project

• .claude/settings.json — allowlists (enabledMcpjsonServers) the server defined in .mcp.json so Claude Code doesn't prompt for approval on every session

Related MCP server: hayabusa-mcp

Setup and running locally

pip install -r requirements.txt
python scripts/download_hayabusa.py   # installs hayabusa/ (binary + rules), if not present

The server is launched by Claude Code via .mcp.json (python server.py, stdio transport) — there's no separate "start the server" step when working through Claude Code. To run/debug it standalone, python server.py starts it directly.

There is no formal test suite (no pytest config) — verify behavior by calling the tools directly, e.g.:

python -c "from server import scan_evtx; print(scan_evtx('samples/sysmon_lsass_mimikatz.evtx'))"
python -c "from server import get_hayabusa_rules; print(get_hayabusa_rules(keyword='mimikatz'))"

Note: an already-running MCP connection does not pick up server.py edits — reconnect/restart the MCP server (e.g. /mcp reconnect in Claude Code) to see code changes reflected in tool calls.

MCP tools

scan_evtx(evtx_path, min_severity="informational", rule_filter="", output_format="summary", max_results=0)

Runs hayabusa json-timeline against a single EVTX file and returns structured JSON detections.

• Invokes the binary with -L (JSONL output), -w (no interactive wizard), -q/-N/-K (quiet, no summary table, no color codes), -C (clobber output file), -b (disable Level abbreviations) — output is written to a temp file and parsed line by line.

• min_severity is post-filtered in Python against SEVERITY_LEVELS (informational < low < medium < high < critical), not passed to Hayabusa as a CLI flag. LEVEL_ALIASES maps abbreviated Level values back to full names as a defensive fallback.

• rule_filter is a case-insensitive substring match against each finding's RuleTitle.

• output_format="summary" (default) trims each finding to SUMMARY_FIELDS (Timestamp, RuleTitle, Level, Computer, Channel, EventID, RecordID, RuleID); "full" returns every field Hayabusa produced, including Details and ExtraFieldInfo.

• max_results truncates the returned list after severity/rule filtering; the response's total_findings still reports the full filtered count so callers can tell when results were capped.

• Scans time out after SCAN_TIMEOUT_SECONDS (600s).

get_hayabusa_rules(keyword="", max_results=100)

Lists Hayabusa's bundled Sigma/built-in detection rules by parsing every YAML file under hayabusa/rules/**/*.yml (~5000 files). Useful for discovering rule titles (to feed into scan_evtx's rule_filter) or understanding what a rule detects before scanning.

• Parsed rule metadata (id, title, level, status, description, tags, logsource, path) is cached in _rules_cache for the life of the process — the first call takes several seconds (full YAML parse), subsequent calls are near-instant. The cache is invalidated only by restarting the server.

• keyword is a case-insensitive substring match against title, description, rule ID, and tags.

• max_results defaults to 100 (there are thousands of rules); 0 means no limit. Response includes total_rules, total_matched, and returned_count.

• Malformed rule YAML, or files without a title field, are silently skipped.

Error handling conventions

Both tools return _error(message) — {"success": false, "error": "..."} — rather than raising, for: invalid enum/range arguments (min_severity, output_format, negative max_results), missing/non-file evtx_path, missing Hayabusa binary or rules directory, non-zero Hayabusa exit code, missing output file, malformed JSONL output line, subprocess timeout, and OSError/ FileNotFoundError when invoking the binary. Successful responses always include "success": true.