Analyze Android APKs with REA

Unofficial guide. This site is an independent community guide and is not affiliated with the REA project. For authoritative docs see the official REA website and the morluto/rea GitHub repository. Commands here are taken from the official README/docs (checked 2026-10-13); REA changes quickly, so verify against the official docs.

What you need

• A full JDK 17+
• jadx-headless-mcp 0.7.1 JAR

REA does not install Java, the Android SDK, JADX or an emulator.

export REA_JADX_MCP_JAR=/absolute/path/jadx-headless-mcp-0.7.1-all.jar
export JAVA_HOME=/absolute/path/existing-jdk   # optional

PowerShell:

$env:REA_JADX_MCP_JAR = 'D:\tools\jadx-headless-mcp-0.7.1-all.jar'
$env:JAVA_HOME = 'D:\tools\jdk-21'

Commands

rea inspect-android-package /path/Example.apk
rea search-android-classes /path/Example.apk MainActivity
rea inspect-android-class /path/Example.apk example.MainActivity
rea inspect-android-method /path/Example.apk example.MainActivity onCreate
rea trace-android-references /path/Example.apk example.MainActivity --method-name onCreate

MCP tool names: inspect_android_package, search_android_classes, inspect_android_class, inspect_android_method, trace_android_references.

Platforms: verified on macOS arm64 with OpenJDK 21; Linux supported; Windows x64 needs a recent package; Windows arm64 is not supported.

Analyze only apps you own or are authorized to examine.

Related guides

• Use cases
• REA CLI command cheat sheet
• Install REA

Sources: android-analysis.md

FAQ