procmon

name	procmon
description	Capture and analyze Windows process / file / registry / network activity with OpenProcMon (procmon-cli). Use when investigating what a program does — files it writes, registry keys it touches, network it makes, its process tree and call stacks — or when analyzing a Procmon-compatible .PML capture. The model: a capture writes a .PML; every analysis reads one.

OpenProcMon (procmon-cli)

OpenProcMon is a capture-then-analyze tool. A capture records process/file/ registry/network events to a Procmon-compatible .PML file; every analysis command reads a .PML and prints JSON. The same procmon-cli binary also serves these as MCP tools (procmon-cli mcp).

Prerequisites

• 64-bit Windows. procmon-cli on PATH.
• Live capture needs Administrator (it loads a kernel driver). Analyzing an existing .PML needs no elevation. Check with procmon-cli driver-status.

Workflow

1. Capture the target's behavior to a .PML (or open an existing one).
2. Query the .PML with filters to extract what you need.
3. Drill in to a specific event for its detail + call stack.

1. Capture

Capture a program and all its children for 10s, launching it first:

procmon-cli capture --name notepad.exe --launch "notepad.exe" --duration 10

• --name X (repeatable) targets a process by image name — matches present and future processes of that name. --pid N targets a specific instance.
• Child processes are followed by default; --no-children to disable.
• --launch "<cmd>" starts the program first so startup is captured.
• --monitor process,file,registry,network selects sources (default: all).
• --duration <secs> and --max-mb <N> bound the capture; --out <path> sets the .PML (default: a temp file). --filter "<expr>" narrows what's recorded (lossy — prefer narrowing at analysis time; same syntax as query below).
• Empty --name/--pid captures the whole system. For injection-suspected malware (the payload may run inside an existing process, not a child), capture system-wide and filter afterward.

capture prints the pml_path, a summary, and a sample of events. Re-analyze that .PML with the commands below.

2. Query — the universal tool

procmon-cli query --pml <file> [--filter "<expr>"] [--group-by <cols>] [--metric <col>] [--limit N]

• --filter "<expr>" — a single filter expression (see the Filter syntax section below). One flag expresses AND, OR, NOT and parens.
• --group-by <Column[,Column...]> — return distinct values + counts (de-duplicated) instead of raw events. Comma-separate for multi-column (e.g. ProcessName,Path). Use it to avoid flooding (distinct files, not 5000 WriteFile rows).
• --metric <numeric column/field> — roll up sum/avg/min/max + first/last time per group (e.g. --metric NetBytes for bytes per endpoint). Only with --group-by.
• Noise (NTFS metadata, monitoring tools, IRP/FastIO bookkeeping, the tool itself) is excluded by default; add --no-noise to see everything.

Prefer --group-by/--metric over exporting CSV and counting yourself — they already do the aggregation.

Recipes (the answers to common questions):

# What files did notepad.exe WRITE? → distinct file paths
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by Path --filter \
  'Category == "File System" && ProcessName == notepad.exe
   && Operation in (WriteFile, SetEndOfFileInformationFile, DeleteFile)'

# Registry keys a process SET (persistence often lands under ...\Run)
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by Path --filter \
  'Category == Registry && Operation in (RegSetValue, RegCreateKey) && Path ~ Run'

# Network endpoints + bytes per endpoint a process talked to
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by RemoteAddress --metric NetBytes --filter \
  'Category == Network && ProcessName == app.exe'

# Operations that FAILED (probing / blocked)
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --filter 'Result != SUCCESS' --limit 50

# Summaries — the GUI's summary views are all just group_by:
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by ProcessName            # busiest processes
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by ProcessName,Category   # per-process by category
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by Path --filter 'Category == "File System"'  # file summary
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by Path --filter 'Path ~ "Local State"'       # who touched it
procmon-cli summary --pml cap.pml

Filter syntax

A filter is Column OP value clauses joined with && (and), || (or), ! (not) and parentheses. Quote values containing spaces or special characters ("File System"). Column names and values are case-insensitive. The CLI vocab subcommand (and the MCP list_filter_columns tool) print this same vocabulary.

Operators:

Op	Meaning	Op	Meaning
==	is (= alias)	^=	begins with
!=	is not (<> alias)	$=	ends with
~	contains	< / >	less / more than (numeric)
!~	excludes	in (a, b)	matches ANY listed value (OR)

Columns (Procmon-mirrored; vocab prints all 25 with a description each): Process Name (alias ProcessName/proc), PID, Parent PID (ppid), TID, Category (class: values Process, File System, Registry, Network, Profiling), Operation (op), Path, Detail, Result, User, Duration, Date & Time, Time of Day, Sequence, …

Extension fields — structured fields beyond the Procmon columns, usable in filters and --group-by (the numeric ones also as --metric). vocab lists them all under extension_fields with descriptions.

• Network: RemoteAddress, RemotePort, LocalAddress, LocalPort, NetBytes (bytes transferred).
• File (CreateFile): Disposition (what was requested — Open / Create / OpenIf / Overwrite / OverwriteIf / Supersede) and OpenResult (what happened — Opened / Created / Overwritten / Superseded / Exists / DoesNotExist). Group by OpenResult to split files a process actually created (OpenResult == Created) from ones it merely opened.

Operation values (use exact names; vocab lists them all per category):

• File: CreateFile, ReadFile, WriteFile, CloseFile, SetEndOfFileInformationFile, QueryDirectory, DeviceIoControl, …
• Registry: RegOpenKey, RegCreateKey, RegSetValue, RegQueryValue, RegDeleteValue, RegDeleteKey, RegEnumKey, …
• Process: Process Create, Process Exit, Thread Create, Load Image, …
• Network: TCP Connect, TCP Send, TCP Receive, UDP Send, UDP Receive, …

Operation gotchas: CreateFile is a file OPEN (how a process opens any file), not necessarily a creation — what it did (created / opened / overwrote) is the OpenResult extension field (also in Detail). So "touched a file" == CreateFile; to find files a process actually created, filter Operation == CreateFile && OpenResult == Created. A reads-only view undercounts (stealers open then memory-map). SetEndOfFileInformationFile / SetAllocationInformationFile = truncate or extend (a write); SetRenameInformationFile = rename / move; SetDispositionInformationFile = mark for delete.

Examples combining the above:

# Files written OR deleted by any non-system process under a temp dir
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --group-by Path --filter \
  'Operation in (WriteFile, DeleteFile) && Path ~ \Temp\ && ProcessName != System'

# Failed registry or file access (probing / blocked)
procmon-cli query --pml cap.pml --filter \
  'Result != SUCCESS && (Category == Registry || Category == "File System")'

3. Drill in

Each event row from query has a seq. Get its full detail + call stack:

procmon-cli get-event --pml cap.pml --seq 1234 --part event,process,stack
procmon-cli get-process --pml cap.pml --pid 4321   # identity + loaded modules
procmon-cli tree --pml cap.pml                       # parent→child process tree
procmon-cli timeline --pml cap.pml --pid 1464        # a PID's key activity, time-ordered
                                                     #   (+ --include-reads for everything)
procmon-cli window --pml cap.pml --seq 1234 --before 25 --after 25  # context around an event

timeline is the quick "what did this PID do" — state-changing ops (writes / deletes / creates, registry writes, process / image load) plus all network, in time order, reads/queries folded away. window shows the events surrounding one seq (same process by default) to explain what led up to or followed it.

Export / metadata

procmon-cli export --pml cap.pml --format csv --out out.csv --filter 'Category == Registry'
procmon-cli export --pml cap.pml --format xml --out out.xml --stacks
procmon-cli pml-info --pml cap.pml      # event count, computer, OS

Limits to keep in mind

• File content is not captured (only path/offset/length). Registry value data IS captured (in an event's Detail). To see what was written into a dropped file, read the file separately.
• Don't sum file byte counts — they're unreliable: memory-mapped (section) reads/writes emit no IO event, so a total silently undercounts. Use operation counts (--group-by Path) for file activity. NetBytes (network) IS an accurate transfer size — summing it (--metric NetBytes) is fine.
• Analysis re-reads the .PML each call; that's fine for typical captures.
• Cross-event reasoning (e.g. dropped-then-executed) is yours to assemble from multiple queries — the tool returns the raw material.

As an MCP server

procmon-cli mcp serves the same operations as MCP tools over stdio (capture, start_capture/stop_capture, query_events, process_timeline, event_window, get_event, get_process, list_processes, process_tree, summary, export, pml_info, list_filter_columns, driver_status). Tools take a source of a finished session_id or a pml_path, and query_events/export/capture take the same filter expression string described above. The server's instructions and the list_filter_columns tool carry the same syntax and recipes as this skill.