crowbar

crowbar

Retrieve CVEs and index them inside your codebase.

Point it at a product and version. It pulls the CVEs that apply and indexes them locally, so any tool in your repo can query the answer.

Website · Guides · Showcases

Quick start · How crowbar works · What you can answer · Showcases · FAQ · Documentation

npx crowbar-cli setup

[!IMPORTANT] Get crowbar from kushvinth/crowbar, crowbar.kushvinth.com, or the crowbar-cli package. A similar repository name or copied README does not make a download official.

A codebase with no CVE index inside it makes people guess. crowbar is the index: it retrieves NVD, CISA KEV, EPSS, SSVC, the CVE List, Exploit-DB, Nuclei, Metasploit, OSV, Debian, MSRC and Apple advisories, and writes them into a local SQLite + FTS5 database you query from your terminal, your CI or your agent. It is offline and reproducible - the same query gives the same answer, no API, no rate limits - so a lookup costs milliseconds instead of a guess.

No web UI, no daemon, no third-party Python packages. Point it at a product and version and it tells you what is actually exploitable, ranks it by real-world risk, and links the proof-of-concept.

crowbar indexes public exploit and PoC data as data. It never clones, compiles, or runs it. Treat anything it surfaces as hostile code and detonate only in a disposable VM. Use it only against systems you own or may test. See DISCLAIMER.md.

Quick start

Set up your agent

With Node.js and uv installed, run:

npx crowbar-cli setup

Setup finds Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and opencode on your machine, shows exactly which configs it will change, and applies them only after you approve. It registers crowbar's MCP server, installs the skill, backs up every config file it edits, and offers to build the local index. Restart your agent afterward. --agents claude,cursor picks agents explicitly; --yes skips the prompts. npx crowbar-cli setup --remove undoes it the same way: it lists what it will remove, asks first, and leaves your other servers and the index alone.

Or install the Claude Code plugin

One install drops in a skill and an MCP server:

claude plugin marketplace add kushvinth/crowbar
claude plugin install crowbar@crowbar

Your agent now has:

• the skill - it reaches for crowbar on any "is X vulnerable / what CVEs hit this / known exploits for …" question instead of guessing from memory;
• the MCP tools - cb_cve, cb_product, cb_search, cb_exploit, … answering offline from the local index.

That's the whole setup. The first time you ask a security question, the crowbar skill sets itself up automatically - installs the tool and builds a small local index in ~/.crowbar (~150 MB; a few minutes, since NVD downloads are slow), then answers. You never run a CLI command, and the index refreshes itself once a day while you use it.

Other agents (Cursor, Codex, Gemini, opencode)

Same MCP server, one line - no heavy install, uvx runs it on demand:

{ "command": "uvx", "args": ["--from", "crowbar-cli", "crowbar-mcp"] }

claude mcp add crowbar -- uvx --from crowbar-cli crowbar-mcp   # or, manually, in Claude Code

The repo ships .claude-plugin/, .codex-plugin/, gemini-extension.json and a host-agnostic skills/crowbar/SKILL.md, so most hosts auto-detect it.

Prefer a plain CLI?

Everything the agent can do, you can do in the terminal. Python 3.11+, zero deps.

uvx crowbar-cli                 # run without installing
uv tool install crowbar-cli     # or pipx install crowbar-cli / pip install crowbar-cli
nix run github:kushvinth/crowbar
git clone https://github.com/kushvinth/crowbar && cd crowbar && ./bin/crowbar --help

Build an index

crowbar sync --tier lite    # pick lite | medium | heavy | extreme
crowbar build --tier lite   # build the local index
crowbar doctor              # verify it's ready

With uvx, prefix each: uvx crowbar-cli sync --tier lite. Refresh later with crowbar update (~10 s) - NVD modified + KEV + EPSS + Exploit-DB, in place.

Size tiers - each a superset of the one above, so you pick your disk budget:

How crowbar works

Your agent asks crowbar about a target over MCP. crowbar answers from the local index - never the network - with the KEV/SSVC/EPSS/CVSS verdict, the affected version ranges, and links to working PoCs. The agent uses that grounded result to explain the risk, decide what to patch, or write and test an exploit under authorization. CLI commands use the same read layer.

What you can answer

Rank threat by KEV / SSVC active > EPSS > CVSS - never CVSS alone. Most read commands accept --json. See the full command reference and AGENTS.md for the traversal manual.

Showcases

Triage Log4Shell in one command. crowbar cve CVE-2021-44228 returns CRIT 10.0 · KEV · EPSS 1.00 · ssvc=active, 44 affected CPE ranges, Exploit-DB 50592 (RCE), 44 Nuclei templates and 4 Metasploit modules - the whole verdict, offline, in ~80 ms.

"What do we run that's exploitable?" crowbar product nginx --version 1.18.0 tests every NVD CPE range against 1.18.0 and returns only real hits, like CVE-2021-23017 HIGH 7.7 · matched f5:nginx >=0.6.18 <1.20.1 - not every CVE that merely mentions "nginx".

Hunt the actively-exploited. crowbar search "remote code execution" --kev --epss 0.5 --sort epss surfaces CVE-2021-26855 (Exchange), CVE-2020-0796 (SMBGhost) and friends, each with exp×N nuc×N poc×N counts, ranked by real exploitation probability.

Used crowbar on something interesting? Open an issue or PR with the target, your question, and what you found.

FAQ

Which agents can use crowbar?

Any MCP host: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, opencode, and Claude Desktop. The launch command is uvx --from crowbar-cli crowbar-mcp; this repo ships ready manifests for the common ones. You can also use every capability from the terminal.

Does it phone home or need an API key?

No. Every dataset is fetched over plain HTTP at build time with no token; after that crowbar is fully offline. The MCP server makes zero network calls, and the index opens read-only.

How big is it, really?

Your choice. A lite index is ~150 MB and answers in milliseconds; extreme is the full corpus (~1.5 GB index over ~3.3 GB of raw data). crowbar doctor tells you what you built and crowbar stats is always authoritative.

Does crowbar run exploits?

Never. It indexes exploit and PoC data as data. crowbar exploit <id> downloads source for you to inspect; running it is your decision, in a disposable VM, under authorization.

How is this different from vulnx / cve-mcp / CIRCL?

Those query live APIs (network, rate limits, answers that drift). crowbar is a local index: offline, reproducible, and it full-text-searches Exploit-DB source code, which the API wrappers don't.

Documentation

• crowbar.kushvinth.com - quick start, commands, agent setup.
• AGENTS.md - the agent traversal manual (schema, recipes, guardrails).
• docs/DATASETS.md - per-source shape, license and caveats.
• docs/MAP.md - repo tree, data flow, table map.
• CONTRIBUTING.md · SECURITY.md · Releases

Star history

Disclaimer

crowbar is for lawful security research, defense, and analysis of systems you own or are authorized to test. See DISCLAIMER.md. KEV/SSVC describe exploitation observed elsewhere, EPSS is a model estimate, and a missing row is not proof of "not affected" - verify before you act.

Contributing

We'd love your help with crowbar! Open an issue to report a bug, a wrong CVE record or a missing dataset, or send a pull request to improve the code or docs.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the dev loop, the add-a-dataset checklist and the test suites. crowbar is standard-library only; keep it that way.

License

MIT

crowbar-authored code is licensed under MIT. The upstream data it indexes keeps its own licenses and terms; see Third-party notices and docs/DATASETS.md for the source inventory.

Indexed exploit and PoC data is reference material, not permission. crowbar never runs it, and nothing it returns authorizes testing a system. Use it only against systems you own or are allowed to test; see DISCLAIMER.md.