apihunter
Professional REST API security testing CLI -- OpenAPI discovery, authentication auditing, heuristic scanning, and comprehensive reporting.
Why apihunter • Features • Architecture • Quick Start • Configuration • Roadmap • Contributing
🚀 Demo
# Discover OpenAPI endpoints
$ apihunter discover https://api.example.com
╭──────────────────── Discovered Endpoints ─────────────────────╮
│ URL │ Method │ Auth │ Status │
├──────────────────────────────────┼────────┼───────────┼────────┤
│ https://api.example.com/v1/users │ GET │ JWT │ 200 │
│ https://api.example.com/v1/users │ POST │ JWT │ 201 │
│ https://api.example.com/v1/login │ POST │ None │ 200 │
│ https://api.example.com/v1/admin │ GET │ JWT+RBAC │ 403 │
╰──────────────────────────────────┴────────┴───────────┴────────╯
# Run security scan
$ apihunter scan https://api.example.com
[INFO] Starting scan on 4 endpoints...
[INFO] Testing authentication: 2 endpoints require JWT
[INFO] Testing authorization (IDOR)...
[!] 🔴 CRITICAL: IDOR vulnerability on /v1/users/{id} (GET)
[!] 🟠 HIGH: Missing rate limiting on /v1/login
[!] 🟡 MEDIUM: Verbose error message on /v1/debug
[✓] 🟢 Scan completed in 12.3s
# Generate HTML report
$ apihunter report <run_id> --format html
[✓] 🟢 Report saved to report_<run_id>.html
🧐 Why apihunter?
| Problem | Manual approach | With apihunter |
|---|---|---|
| Finding OpenAPI specs | grep, curl, guesswork across dozens of endpoints |
Automatic discovery -- detects Swagger/OpenAPI, GraphQL introspection, and common API patterns |
| Authentication analysis | Manual Burp testing, checking each endpoint individually | Automated auth auditing -- identifies JWT, OAuth, Basic Auth, and missing auth |
| Security heuristics | Random testing, no systematic coverage | Built-in heuristics -- IDOR, CORS misconfigurations, injection points, rate limiting |
| Tracking findings | Spreadsheets or scattered notes | SQLite database + HTML/Markdown/SARIF reports with severity badges |
| CI/CD integration | Custom scripts that break easily | CLI-friendly -- exit codes, JSON output, and SARIF for GitHub Code Scanning |
✨ Features
- 🔎 OpenAPI / Swagger Discovery -- automatically finds and parses OpenAPI 2.0/3.0, Swagger UI, and GraphQL introspection endpoints.
- 🔐 Authentication Detection -- detects JWT, OAuth2, Basic Auth, API keys, and missing authentication.
- 🛡️ Heuristic Security Scanning -- checks for:
- Insecure Direct Object References (IDOR)
- CORS misconfigurations
- SQL/NoSQL injection points (detection only)
- Rate limiting absence
- Information disclosure (verbose errors, stack traces)
- 📊 Multi‑format Reports -- HTML (interactive dashboard), Markdown (for docs), SARIF (for GitHub Code Scanning).
- 🗄️ Local SQLite Storage -- every scan is stored, enabling historical comparison and audit trails.
- ⚙️ Scope‑aware -- respect
scope.yamlto focus on specific domains, paths, and exclude third‑party endpoints. - 🧩 Extensible -- plugin‑based architecture to add custom checks or providers.
🛠️ Tech Stack
- Language: Python 3.11+
- CLI: Typer
- Terminal output: Rich
- HTTP client: HTTPX
- Storage: SQLite
- Reports: Jinja2
- Config: PyYAML
🏗️ Architecture
graph TD
A[CLI Entry] --> B{Command}
B -->|discover| C[Discover Provider]
B -->|scan| D[Scan Engine]
B -->|report| E[Report Generator]
B -->|db| F[Database Manager]
C --> G[OpenAPI Parser]
C --> H[GraphQL Introspection]
C --> I[Common Patterns]
D --> J[Heuristic Modules]
J --> K[IDOR Checker]
J --> L[CORS Checker]
J --> M[Auth Checker]
J --> N[Injection Detector]
D --> F
D --> O[Results]
O --> E
E --> P[HTML Report]
E --> Q[Markdown Report]
E --> R[SARIF Report]
F --> S[SQLite Storage]
S --> O
style A fill:#58a6ff,stroke:#1f6feb,color:#fff
style C fill:#3fb950,stroke:#2ea043
style D fill:#d29922,stroke:#9e6a03
style E fill:#f0883e,stroke:#d97a00
style F fill:#f85149,stroke:#da3633
- Discovery Engine: Injects providers to probe target surfaces.
- Scanner Engine: Executes specialized analyzers against discovered endpoints.
- Core: Manages the database, HTTP client, and scope.
📦 Installation
# From PyPI (recommended) — detection-only, no payloads
pip install apihunter-bess1lie
# CLI stays `apihunter`
apihunter --help
# Isolated with pipx (recommended for tools)
pipx install apihunter-bess1lie
# From source (latest dev)
git clone https://github.com/bess1lie/apihunter.git
cd apihunter
pip install -e .
⚡ Quick Start
Basic usage (scope-aware)
# 0. Create scope.yaml — every request gated by allowlist
cat > scope.yaml <<'YAML'
allow: ["api.example.com"]
targets: ["https://api.example.com"]
YAML
# 1. Discover endpoints
apihunter discover https://api.example.com --scope scope.yaml
# 2. Scan (heuristics: auth — detection only; IDOR/CORS/injection are 🚧)
apihunter scan https://api.example.com --scope scope.yaml
# 3. Report + SARIF for GitHub Code Scanning
apihunter report <run_id> --format html -o report.html
apihunter report <run_id> --format sarif -o apihunter.sarif
# Verify install
apihunter --help && apihunter version
Requires
scope.yaml— out-of-scope requests are blocked. Seescope.example.yamlanddocs/scope.md.
⚙️ Configuration
Create a scope.yaml file to define your testing boundaries (see docs/scope.md):
allow:
- "api.example.com"
- "*.example.com"
deny:
- "cdn.example.com"
targets:
- "https://api.example.com"
excluded_extensions:
- png
- css
- js
All keys optional; empty = fail-closed. allow supports *. wildcards, bare domain matches subdomains.
🔄 Comparison with alternatives
| Feature | apihunter | Postman | OWASP ZAP | Burp Suite | Custom scripts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAPI Discovery | ✅ | ❌ (manual) | ❌ (add‑on) | ❌ (manual) | ❌ |
| Authentication Analysis | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Heuristic Scanning | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Reports (HTML/Markdown/SARIF) | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| CI/CD Friendly | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Lightweight CLI | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Scope‑aware | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
🗺️ Roadmap
| Status | Feature |
|---|---|
| ✅ | OpenAPI 2.0/3.0 discovery |
| ✅ | HTML / Markdown / SARIF reports |
| ✅ | SQLite storage + scope-aware gating |
| ✅ | JWT / OAuth detection (auth analyzer) |
| 🚧 | IDOR checker |
| 🚧 | CORS checker |
| 🚧 | Rate limiting detection |
| 🚧 | Injection point detection (SQL/NoSQL) |
| 🚧 | Headers / info-leak analyzers |
| 🚧 | Plugin system for custom checks |
| 🚧 | GraphQL introspection |
| 🔮 | OpenTelemetry integration |
| 🔮 | Web UI dashboard |
| 🔮 | Kubernetes operator |
🤝 Contributing
Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.
🛡️ Security
If you find a vulnerability, please report it privately to bess1iework@gmail.com — see SECURITY.md.
PyPI name:
pip install apihunter-bess1lie(importapihunter, CLIapihunter). The short nameapihunteris reserved for a future 1.x alias.
📄 License
Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.
🌐 More Tools
- bounthunt - Bug bounty reconnaissance and automation.
- gqlhunter - GraphQL security testing and introspection.
detection-first · scope-aware · bess1lie.github.io · contact
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