mandiant/capa

ghidra: enable feature extraction from existing Ghidra project binary

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#3,004 opened on Apr 7, 2026

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enhancementghidrahelp wanted

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Description

Currently, the Ghidra backend creates a new project and loads the target binary for a fresh analysis. We should enable users to specify an existing Ghidra project binary, e.g. to load a sample that has already been analyzed, annotated, etc.. This saves analysis time, and enables annotations to be used for analysis.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Explore the existing Ghidra backend codebase, particularly the project creation logic, and propose a way to allow users to optionally specify an existing Ghidra project binary path.
Tech stack
python
Domain
backendsecurity
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Needs investigation
Prerequisites
PythonGhidra
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
55