| name | ghost-proxy |
| description | Starts and controls the reaper MITM proxy to capture, inspect, search, and replay HTTP/HTTPS traffic between clients and servers. Capabilities include starting/stopping the proxy scoped to specific domains, viewing captured request/response logs, searching traffic by method/path/status/host, and inspecting full raw HTTP entries for security analysis. Use when the user asks to "start the proxy", "capture traffic", "intercept requests", "inspect HTTP traffic", "search captured requests", or "view request/response". |
| license | apache-2.0 |
| metadata | {"version":"1.1.0"} |
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.
reaper start --domains example.com
reaper start --domains example.com,api.internal.co
reaper start --hosts api.example.com
reaper start --domains example.com --hosts special.internal.co
reaper start --domains example.com --port 9090
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 -x http://localhost:8443 -k https://api.example.com/endpoint
export http_proxy=http://localhost:8443
export https_proxy=http://localhost:8443
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
reaper logs
reaper logs -n 200
Output columns: ID, METHOD, HOST, PATH, STATUS, MS, REQ (request body size), RES (response body size).
Searching
reaper search --method POST
reaper search --host *.api.example.com
reaper search --domains example.com
reaper search --path /api/v3/transfer
reaper search --status 200
reaper search --method POST --path /api/v3/* --status 200 -n 50
Inspecting Individual Entries
reaper get 42
reaper req 42
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.