neurobin/shc

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

2246 stars · 373 forks observed · 2026-08-28

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

shc is a generic shell script compiler that converts shell scripts (bash, sh, zsh, ksh, etc.) into C source code, which is then compiled into a stripped binary executable. It encrypts and encodes the script with optional expiration and anti-tracing capabilities, though the resulting binary still depends on the shell specified in the shebang.

Use cases

• compile a bash script into a binary executable
• hide or obfuscate shell script source code from users
• add an expiration date to a distributed shell script
• prevent strace/ptrace debugging of a shell script
• distribute shell scripts without revealing the code
• convert a shell script into a standalone-looking executable

When to choose

• you need to distribute shell scripts without exposing their source
• you want to add expiration or anti-tracing protections to shell scripts
• you need a lightweight C-based tool that works with many shell dialects

When to avoid

• you need truly independent binaries not dependent on the target system's shell
• you require strong security - the encryption is obfuscation, not real protection
• your script is very long, exceeding the _SC_ARG_MAX limit
• you need the experimental -H hardening flag with positional parameters

Facets

cli-tool · maturity stable

compiler security cli developer-tools developer-tools security bsd cli cross-platform shell-script-compiler script-encryption bash binary-conversion obfuscation command-line automation linux macos

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="neurobin/shc")