# greatscottgadgets/facedancer

Implement your own USB device in Python, supported by a hardware peripheral such as Cynthion or GreatFET

Repository: https://github.com/greatscottgadgets/facedancer
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/facedancer
Language: Python
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-05-22T08:51:50+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 83/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 83, release rhythm 73, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3501, "days_push": 103, "days_rel": 103, "gap_med": 46, "n_releases_24m": 8}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1010, forks 151 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:13.056959+00:00)

## What it is
A Python library for emulating USB devices using hardware peripherals like Cynthion or GreatFET. It also supports MITM proxying of USB connections for protocol analysis and live packet manipulation.

## Use cases
- emulate a custom USB device in Python
- fuzz USB host controllers
- MITM and sniff USB traffic between a device and host
- reverse engineer a proprietary USB protocol
- test how an embedded system or games console responds to malformed USB devices

## When to choose
- you need fine-grained control over USB device behavior, including intentional misbehaviors
- you own compatible hardware such as Cynthion, GreatFET, or Facedancer boards
- you want to proxy or manipulate live USB connections without controlling the target software

## When to avoid
- you need pure software USB emulation without dedicated hardware
- you rely on legacy Facedancer v2.x scripts, which are incompatible with 3.0
- you only need to analyze USB captures passively rather than interact with hardware

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: security, simulation, developer-tools, testing, fuzzing
- domain: security, hardware, developer-tools, embedded-systems, penetration-testing
- platform: python, cross-platform
- tags: usb, usb-emulation, hardware-hacking, usb-proxy, mitm, cynthion, greatfet, usb-host-testing, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- greatscottgadgets/facedancer (main) score 83

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:13.056959+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:11:56.778362+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/greatscottgadgets/facedancer (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:13.056959+00:00, sha 812b0aa7f6f2)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/facedancer/json (fetched 2026-08-29T13:11:53.747617+00:00, sha 16e619ce29b5)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.