Katana

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_releases no_license

Adoption not part of the score

1363 stars · 187 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Katana is a Python CLI tool by John Hammond that automates common low-hanging-fruit checks for CTF challenges, paired with ctf-katana, a curated living document of tools and commands for CTF categories like enumeration, forensics, crypto, web, and binary exploitation. Together they serve as both an automated helper and a reference guide for capture-the-flag players.

Use cases

• automate common checks on a CTF challenge file
• find tools for solving SMB enumeration challenges
• look up commands for steganography or forensics challenges
• get started with capture the flag competitions
• quickly triage unknown CTF binaries or files
• find reverse shell and post-exploitation commands
• reference commands for HackTheBox or similar platforms

When to choose

• you play CTFs and want a curated cheat sheet of tools and commands
• you want to automate routine low-hanging-fruit checks on challenge files
• you are a beginner looking for guidance across many CTF categories

When to avoid

• you need a professional penetration testing suite for real engagements
• you need a maintained tool with active releases and a clear license
• you want a GUI or polished workflow rather than a script and reference list

Facets

cli-tool · maturity maintenance

penetration-testing security developer-tools cli security penetration-testing developer-tools windows cli python ctf capture-the-flag awesome-list reconnaissance enumeration steganography forensics cryptography reverse-engineering binary-exploitation command-line linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="JohnHammond/katana")