ghost-proxy

SKILL.md

Reaper MITM Proxy

Reaper is a CLI-based MITM HTTPS proxy for application security testing. It intercepts, logs, and allows inspection of HTTP/HTTPS traffic flowing through it. Use it to capture live request/response pairs for security validation.

Prerequisites

Before using any reaper command, make sure the latest version of the binary is installed:

curl -sfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ghostsecurity/reaper/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

All reaper commands in this document should be invoked as ~/.ghost/bin/reaper unless ~/.ghost/bin is on PATH.

Quick Reference

Command
Purpose

reaper start --domains example.com
Start proxy (foreground)

reaper start --domains example.com -d
Start proxy (daemon)

reaper logs
Show recent captured entries

reaper search --method POST --path /api/*
Search captured traffic

reaper get <id>
Show full request + response

reaper req <id>
Show raw HTTP request only

reaper res <id>
Show raw HTTP response only

reaper stop
Stop the daemon

Starting the Proxy

Start reaper scoped to the target domain(s). At least one --domains or --hosts flag is required.

# Intercept all traffic to example.com and its subdomains
reaper start --domains example.com

# Multiple domains
reaper start --domains example.com,api.internal.co

# Exact hostname matching
reaper start --hosts api.example.com

# Both domain suffix and exact host matching
reaper start --domains example.com --hosts special.internal.co

# Custom port (default: 8443)
reaper start --domains example.com --port 9090

# Run as background daemon
reaper start --domains example.com -d

Scope behavior:

--domains: Suffix match. example.com matches example.com, api.example.com, sub.api.example.com

--hosts: Exact match. api.example.com matches only api.example.com

Traffic outside scope passes through transparently without logging

Routing Traffic Through the Proxy

Configure the HTTP client to use the proxy. The default listen address is localhost:8443.

# curl
curl -x http://localhost:8443 -k https://api.example.com/endpoint

# Environment variables (works with many tools)
export http_proxy=http://localhost:8443
export https_proxy=http://localhost:8443

# Python requests
import requests
requests.get("https://api.example.com/endpoint",
             proxies={"http": "http://localhost:8443", "https": "http://localhost:8443"},
             verify=False)

The -k / verify=False flag is needed because reaper generates its own CA certificate at startup for MITM TLS interception.

Viewing Captured Traffic

Recent Entries

# Show last 50 entries (default)
reaper logs

# Show last 200 entries
reaper logs -n 200

Output columns: ID, METHOD, HOST, PATH, STATUS, MS, REQ (request body size), RES (response body size).

Searching

# By HTTP method
reaper search --method POST

# By host (supports * wildcard)
reaper search --host *.api.example.com

# By domain suffix
reaper search --domains example.com

# By path prefix (supports * wildcard)
reaper search --path /api/v3/transfer

# By status code
reaper search --status 200

# Combined filters
reaper search --method POST --path /api/v3/* --status 200 -n 50

Inspecting Individual Entries

# Full request and response (raw HTTP)
reaper get 42

# Request only
reaper req 42

# Response only
reaper res 42

Output is raw HTTP/1.1 format including headers and body, suitable for analysis or replay.

Stopping the Proxy

reaper stop

Common Workflows

Validate a Security Finding

When used with the validate skill (may need to collaborate with the user to setup the test environment):

Start reaper scoped to the application domain

Verify traffic is being captured by running reaper logs — at least one entry should appear after routing a test request through the proxy

If no entries appear, verify proxy settings and domain scope match the target

Authenticate (or ask the user to authenticate) as a normal user and exercise the vulnerable endpoint legitimately

Search for the captured request to understand the expected request format

Craft and send a malicious request that exercises the exploit described in the finding

Inspect the response to determine if the exploit succeeded

Use reaper get <id> to capture the full request/response as evidence

Data Storage

All data is stored in ~/.reaper/:

reaper.db - SQLite database with captured entries

reaper.sock - Unix socket for CLI-to-daemon IPC

reaper.pid - Daemon process ID

The CA certificate is generated fresh in memory on each start and is not persisted.
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