rea/docs/managed-code-analysis.md

Managed-code analysis plan

This document turns ADR-0003 into an implementation and verification plan. REA currently ships read-only PE/CLI triage and exact identity through inspect_managed_artifact and rea inspect-managed-artifact, plus bounded metadata, signature, method-body CIL, exception-region, call-edge, and field-access inspection through inspect_managed_members and rea inspect-managed-members, and declared ModuleRef/ImplMap/PInvoke and native implementation boundary inventory through inspect_managed_native_boundaries and rea inspect-managed-native-boundaries, plus obfuscation-resistant member comparison through compare_managed_members and rea compare-managed-members, decompiler reconstruction import through import_managed_reconstruction and rea import-managed-reconstruction, and default-disabled runtime-correlation admission planning through plan_managed_runtime_correlation and rea plan-managed-runtime-correlation. Verified native export/function matching and runtime execution remain planned behavior. The current product inventory remains the one in product-catalog.json.

Analysis objective

REA's managed-code track is intended to answer five different questions without collapsing them:

1. What exact artifact and managed deployment form is this?
2. What do its admitted metadata and CIL bytes state?
3. What source-like or behavioral structure can be reconstructed or inferred?
4. Which findings survive an exact-build check or a cross-build structural comparison?
5. Which remaining questions require native analysis or a separately authorized runtime experiment?

The ordinary workflow ends at question four. Static analysis never loads or executes the target.

Classification workflow

Classification proceeds from the outermost authenticated bytes inward:

source path
  -> canonical path, size, SHA-256
  -> container inventory
  -> PE/native header and architecture
  -> CLI header and metadata root
  -> deployment/runtime markers
  -> per-component and per-method implementation availability
  -> managed-only, native-only, composed, degraded, or unsupported route

The result is a vector rather than one label. For example, a single-file modern .NET deployment can contain a native host, ordinary CIL assemblies, and ReadyToRun components. Each component receives its own digest, classification, coverage, and route while retaining the outer bundle commitment.

Case	Required positive observations	Claims that remain unavailable or inferred
.NET Framework	Valid CLI metadata plus bounded Framework-specific target/reference evidence	Exact installed CLR and runtime behavior
Modern .NET	Valid CLI metadata plus bounded target/reference/runtime-config evidence	Exact runtime selected on another host
Unity Mono	Valid managed assembly plus authenticated Unity context when supplied	Engine behavior or native integration not represented by metadata
ReadyToRun	Valid managed metadata plus authenticated ReadyToRun header/sections	Native implementation semantics until a selected deep provider analyzes them
C++/CLI	Valid CLI metadata plus mixed-mode PE/header evidence	Mapping managed declarations to native implementations without explicit bridge evidence
Single-file	Valid authenticated bundle inventory and component extents	Components that are compressed or encoded by an unsupported bundle version
Unity IL2CPP	Authenticated native image/metadata pairing and supported metadata version	Canonical CIL and source-equivalent C#
NativeAOT	Native image plus bounded NativeAOT evidence	Ordinary CLI metadata/CIL unless independently present
Obfuscated assembly	Same positive byte observations as its underlying deployment form	Meaning inferred only from names
Malformed/unsupported	Exact admitted regions and failure locations	Completeness, successfully skipped rows, or semantics beyond the admitted parser boundary

Evidence record shape

Every planned operation returns a provider result and Evidence with four commitment groups:

Artifact commitment

• canonical local path, byte length, and SHA-256;
• outer-container identity and digest when inspecting a component;
• component name/path, byte extent, and SHA-256;
• observed PE machine, CLI flags, and conflicts;
• classification vector, supporting observations, and unresolved dimensions.

Module commitment

• assembly simple name, version, culture, public-key/token state, flags, and hash algorithm;
• module name, generation, and MVID;
• target framework and runtime/version strings with their exact metadata locations;
• parser/provider version, profile schema, limits, and profile digest.

Entity commitment

• table kind and build-local token;
• declaring scope and normalized CLI signature;
• row/heap/body locations expressed as typed file offsets, RVAs, or CIL offsets;
• exact raw bytes or bounded value digest;
• method body, normalized CIL, locals, exception-region, and generic-context commitments where applicable.

Epistemic commitment

• authority: static bytes, reconstruction, structural inference, independent validation, native provider, or separately authorized runtime;
• state: observed, inferred, unknown, or unavailable;
• confidence independent of authority;
• coverage and admitted/dropped counts;
• exact supporting Evidence IDs and actionable limitations.

A semantic label such as score_submission_gate can annotate an entity, but it is never the entity's identity. The same applies to an obfuscated name, token, RVA, or decompiler-generated local name.

Planned static capabilities

The caller-visible grouping and exact tool names are decided with the contracts that implement them. The underlying capability slices are:

1. Triage and inventory: container/component classification, assembly and module identity, references, files, exported types, resources, attributes, and runtime markers.
2. Member inventory: bounded types, methods, fields, properties, events, interfaces, nesting, generics, and normalized signatures.
3. Method inspection: headers, max stack, locals, CIL instructions, constants, metadata operands, exception regions, and implementation flags.
4. Relationships: declared overrides, interface implementations, member references, direct CIL callers/callees, field access, construction, and interop declarations. Dynamic dispatch remains qualified.
5. Structural search and comparison: signature/API/constant/flow anchors, exact and normalized hashes, competing candidates, and explicit exact/structural/missing/ambiguous states.
6. Managed/native composition: P/Invoke, unmanaged exports, COM/mixed-mode declarations, ReadyToRun/native bodies, single-file hosts, and authenticated IL2CPP pairs linked to selected Hopper/Ghidra evidence. The shipped boundary inventory is declaration-only until native-provider evidence verifies exports, thunks, or functions.

Every list has a deterministic order and hard limits. Search exposes scanned, matched, returned, and dropped counts. An unresolved indirect call or a failed signature decode is not silently omitted from a completeness claim.

Obfuscation-resistant method slices

Names are one weak feature among many. A behavior slice records the smallest bounded set of observations needed to investigate a proposition:

• normalized declaring/member signatures and inheritance/interface shape;
• framework and application API references;
• exact strings, numeric constants, enum-like values, and serialization keys;
• branch, switch, exception, loop, call, and field-flow shape;
• construction and generic-instantiation sites;
• exact body and normalized-CIL commitments;
• callers, callees, shared fields, and competing candidates; and
• limitations from reflection, dynamic dispatch, generated code, protection, native transitions, or incomplete coverage.

The workflow produces separate observation, inference, validation, and unknown tables. It may say that a method is a strong candidate for a role; it cannot turn that role into the method's durable identity.

Cross-version matching is two-stage:

1. Exact identity requires compatible artifact/module commitments and an exact entity/body identity.
2. Structural identity compares schema-versioned signatures, normalized CIL, APIs, constants, and bounded graph context. It reports all candidates at the winning score and remains ambiguous when the evidence does not distinguish them.

Tokens are always remapped through observed structure. A caller cannot carry 0x06001234 into a new MVID and assume it names the same method.

Managed/native boundary rules

Boundary	Managed observation	Native observation	Permitted link
P/Invoke	Module, entry point, charset/calling-convention flags, declaring method	Import/export/symbol/function evidence from the selected deep provider	Exact declared-name/module link or qualified resolution inference
COM	Interop attributes, GUIDs, imported interfaces, method signatures	Native registration/vtable evidence when independently available	Identifier/signature inference with explicit environment limitations
C++/CLI	Managed declaration and implementation flags	Native body/function evidence	Only a provider-supported bridge observation; never token-as-address
ReadyToRun	Component/header and per-method CIL/native availability	Native section/function evidence	Authenticated image mapping with format/profile version
Unmanaged export	Export metadata/attribute when present	PE export and native thunk/function	Exact export identity plus provider-qualified address
Single-file host	Bundle entry/component identity	Host and native component evidence	Outer bundle plus component digest/extent commitment
Unity IL2CPP	Supported metadata entity with authenticated pairing	Generated native function/type evidence	Versioned IL2CPP mapping only; no invented CIL
Runtime-resolved native	API/constant/data-flow candidate	Loaded-module/symbol observation only under separate runtime execution authority	Static candidate remains inference until separately observed

Declared import inventory supports a bounded positive claim. Its absence does not exclude dynamic resolution, generated code, protected code, native helpers, or server-side behavior.

Tool and packaging boundary

The production parser is REA-owned TypeScript and ships with the existing Node application. It is verified against the ECMA-335 format and independent pinned oracles but has no runtime dependency on them.

• System.Reflection.Metadata is the primary independent metadata/CIL oracle.
• ICSharpCode.Decompiler and ilspycmd are reconstruction and differential oracles. An admitted BYO reconstruction operation records its exact version and remains non-canonical.
• dnlib and Mono.Cecil may increase differential coverage. Their mutation APIs are not exposed or included in the production parsing boundary.
• The package contains no .NET runtime, SDK, ILSpy installation, proprietary assembly, or compiled conformance fixture.
• Setup never installs or upgrades those tools. Doctor may inspect an explicit optional path without changing it.

Real-tool downloads used in development or CI require exact package coordinates and SHA-256 lock entries. They are cached outside the source tree and restored into isolated directories. Updating any coordinate requires review of license, runtime, supported host, output contract, and conformance results.

Target platform is not host support. The canonical parser must inspect Windows-produced PE/CLI bytes on REA's supported Linux and macOS hosts with the same result. Pinned Windows oracle jobs may provide additional conformance, but they do not claim that the REA application itself supports Windows. Native ReadyToRun, C++/CLI, NativeAOT, or IL2CPP coverage is additionally constrained by the selected Hopper/Ghidra host and format matrix.

Source-built conformance corpus

Fixture sources are intentionally small and behavior-focused. Build outputs are generated outside tracked fixture directories and must not remain after verification or packaging.

Corpus slice	Required properties
Identity	Assembly/module/version/culture/public key, references, attributes, resources, MVID
Signatures	Nested/generic types, arrays, pointers, by-ref, function pointers where supported, varargs
CIL	Short/long branches, switch, prefixes, constants, locals, calls, fields, boxing, tokens
Exceptions	Catch, finally, fault/filter where the compiler/toolchain supports them
Generated structure	Async and iterator state machines, lambdas, closures, properties, events
Interop	P/Invoke flags, module/name mapping, managed/unmanaged implementation metadata
Architecture	AnyCPU, preferred-32-bit where applicable, x86, x64
Obfuscation resistance	Unicode/meaningless/duplicate-looking names and structure-preserving renames
Cross-build comparison	At least two builds with changed MVID/token order/layout and known same/changed behaviors
Malformed/adversarial	Truncated/overflowing headers, streams, tables, heaps, signatures, bodies, and EH sections

Verification compares semantic facts, not decompiler text. It checks resource ceilings, deterministic ordering, complete cleanup, CLI/MCP parity, Evidence commitments, packed-package behavior, and target-free MCP startup. A parser and an oracle disagreeing on malformed input is investigated explicitly; one tool's acceptance does not automatically make the bytes valid.

Operator-local osu! benchmark

The optional osu! benchmark accepts only paths and expectations supplied by the operator. A compact manifest contains:

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "target": {
    "sha256": "<exact target digest>",
    "mvid": "<exact module MVID>",
    "assembly_name": "<expected simple name>",
    "architecture": "<expected classification>"
  },
  "methods": [
    {
      "label": "operator-local semantic label",
      "token": "0x06000000",
      "signature": "<normalized signature>",
      "il_length": 0,
      "normalized_il_sha256": "<digest>"
    }
  ]
}

Before evaluating methods, the verifier fails closed on any target commitment mismatch. Output contains assertion status and compact identities only. It does not print method bodies, reconstructed C#, application data, runtime telemetry, account/service details, or full filesystem inventories. The manifest and target remain outside git.

The benchmark may prove that REA reproduces selected facts for that exact local build. It cannot establish general support on its own; source-built conformance remains the admission requirement.

Runtime admission boundary

The later runtime track is not an extension flag on a static operation. Its design must expose whether it attaches to an existing process, launches a new process, loads an assembly, uses reflection, installs a debugger/profiler, or instruments code. Each effect needs separate approval and exact-build checks.

At minimum, admission requires target SHA-256, MVID, normalized signature and body/CIL commitment, CLR family, OS, architecture, tool version, scenario limits, output policy, and cleanup ownership to match. Any mismatch fails before the experiment. It must not contact real services/accounts or claim that an instrumented path represents an ordinary launch unless that proposition is independently tested.

The shipped plan_managed_runtime_correlation path admits only a default-disabled, permission-gated experiment plan and records that no target code was executed. Until a separate executor is designed and shipped, runtime behavior questions remain explicit unknowns with suggested probes; static support does not perform them.

Delivery sequence

The managed-code track advances as reviewable pull requests:

1. accepted evidence/provider boundary (this document and ADR);
2. read-only artifact triage and exact identity (shipped);
3. bounded metadata, signatures, method bodies, and normalized CIL (shipped);
4. obfuscation-resistant slices and cross-version comparison (shipped for static member observations);
5. decompiler reconstruction import (shipped as analyst inference; REA does not run ILSpy/dnSpy, and metadata/CIL remain canonical);
6. managed/native composition and truthful deployment degradation (declaration inventory shipped; verified native-provider matching remains planned);
7. source-built managed conformance and package/CLI verification (source-owned PE/CLI corpus shipped through npm run verify:managed; pinned external ILSpy/dnSpy/Windows checks remain planned); and
8. separately authorized runtime-correlation admission planning (shipped; no runtime execution).

Each implementation PR updates generated product facts only for behavior it actually ships and states which real-tool checks were performed.