# recon

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Passive domain intelligence from public sources. Queries DNS records, Microsoft/Google identity endpoints, and certificate transparency logs to build a picture of an organization's technology stack — no credentials, no API keys, no active scanning.

Drop in a domain, get a calibrated read on its identity stack, email posture, and cloud footprint in seconds.

> **Defensive use only.** recon is designed for legitimate security posture assessment, IT architecture review, vendor due diligence, and defensive hardening. It performs zero active scanning and zero credentialed access. See [docs/legal.md](docs/legal.md) for the full intended-use policy.

```bash
recon contoso.com
```

```
Contoso Ltd
contoso.com
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Provider     Microsoft 365 (primary) via Proofpoint gateway + Google Workspace (secondary)
  Tenant       a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890 • NA
  Auth         Federated (Entra ID + Google Workspace)
  Confidence   ●●● High (4 sources)

Services
  Email          Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Proofpoint, DMARC, DKIM,
                 SPF: strict (-all), BIMI
  Identity       Okta, Google Workspace (managed identity)
  Cloud          Cloudflare (CDN), AWS Route 53 (DNS)
  Security       Wiz, CAA: 3 issuers restricted
  Collaboration  Slack, Atlassian (Jira/Confluence)

High-signal related domains
  api.contoso.com, login.contoso.com, portal.contoso.com, sso.contoso.com,
  admin.contoso.com, status.contoso.com, support.contoso.com
  (57 total — 50 more, use --full to see all)

Insights
  Federated identity indicators observed (likely Okta — enterprise SSO)
  Email security 4/5: DMARC reject, DKIM, SPF strict, BIMI
  Email gateway: Proofpoint in front of Exchange
  Dual provider: Google + Microsoft coexistence
```

> Examples use [Microsoft's fictional company names](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/urls-and-ip-address-ranges) (Contoso, Northwind Traders, Fabrikam). Tenant IDs, services, and domains are fabricated. No real company is depicted.

Works for Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or any provider. Also runs as an [MCP server](docs/mcp.md) for AI agents; the default `pip install recon-tool` includes MCP support.

## Why recon?

| If you need... | Use recon for... | Reach for something heavier when... |
|---|---|---|
| Fast external stack context | Passive DNS, identity-endpoint, CT, SaaS, and posture indicators with no credentials | You need authenticated tenant inventory or asset-management truth |
| Defensive review or vendor diligence | Hedged observations and evidence traces you can verify | You need vulnerability scanning, exploit checks, or host-level facts |
| Automation-friendly output | Stable `--json`, batch mode, delta mode, and local MCP tools | You need dashboards, scheduled monitoring, or report generation |

## recon in practice

recon is the fast, zero-credential first-pass for external technology-stack and posture visibility. Run it before a vendor diligence call, before a partner integration, before an M&A review, before a hardening audit. Output is hedged, traceable, and shaped for downstream automation.

recon does not replace commercial EASM platforms, active scanners, or continuous monitoring. It is the upstream signal that feeds those tools, with full provenance so you can verify any conclusion before you act on it.

## How recon Works

recon starts as a fast **passive DNS and certificate-transparency
reader**. It gathers the public-channel observables: MX records, CNAME
chains, SPF and DMARC TXT records, CT log SAN sets, and the
unauthenticated identity-discovery endpoints Microsoft and Google
publish for tenant resolution.

Those observables are then fed into a small Bayesian network, where
exact inference produces 80% credible intervals over high-level claims
(M365 tenant, federated identity, email-policy enforcement, CDN
fronting, AWS hosting, and so on). The output is an interval, not a
binary verdict, and the structural motifs the network surfaces (a CDN
in front of an identity provider, an email gateway in front of M365, a
secondary GWS deployment alongside primary M365) are the ones
single-source detection often misses.

On hardened or heavily-proxied targets, the credible interval widens
rather than collapsing on a confident point estimate. This is a
construction property of the inference layer: by design, absent
evidence is treated as no evidence rather than as evidence of absence.
The tool reports what the public channel reveals and is explicit about
what it does not.

> **For the formal model:** the missing-data treatment under adversarial
> assumptions (MNAR via Distributionally Robust Optimization), the
> calibration principles the credible interval satisfies, and the
> failure-mode catalog across five hardening postures live in
> [docs/correlation.md](docs/correlation.md).

The fingerprint catalog is shaped by passive-DNS observation of real
corpora. The built-in catalog ships with the package; operators can
extend it for their own environment by dropping additions into
`~/.recon/fingerprints.yaml` (additive only, cannot override
built-ins). Anything broadly useful can be contributed upstream via
the workflow in [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). The maintainer
runs the same scan-triage loop against a private corpus before each
release; the catalog grows from observed gaps, not invented entries.

## Install

Requires Python 3.10+.

```bash
pip install recon-tool                 # includes MCP server
pip install -U recon-tool              # upgrade
recon doctor                           # verify connectivity
```

## Usage

```bash
recon contoso.com                              # default panel
recon contoso.com --explain                    # full reasoning + provenance DAG
recon contoso.com --full                       # everything (services + domains + posture)
recon contoso.com --profile fintech            # apply a posture lens
recon contoso.com --confidence-mode strict     # drop hedging on dense-evidence targets (current)
recon contoso.com --json                       # structured JSON for piping
recon batch domains.txt --json                 # batch (cross-domain token clustering)
recon batch domains.txt --json --include-ecosystem  # add v1.8 ecosystem hypergraph
recon contoso.com --chain --depth 2            # follow related-domain breadcrumbs
recon delta contoso.com                        # diff against last cached snapshot
recon mcp                                      # start MCP server (stdio)
```

Built-in profiles: `fintech`, `healthcare`, `saas-b2b`, `high-value-target`, `public-sector`, `higher-ed`. Custom profiles live in `~/.recon/profiles/*.yaml`.

See [docs/README.md](docs/README.md) for the organized documentation index.

## MCP Server

recon runs as an MCP server for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT, or any MCP client. The Model Context Protocol lets AI agents call tools like recon directly from your chat.

**One-shot install** — let recon write the right config block for you:

```bash
recon mcp install --client=claude-desktop   # or claude-code, cursor, vscode, windsurf, kiro
recon mcp doctor                            # spawn the server and verify the JSON-RPC handshake
```

The install command is idempotent and merge-safe — sibling MCP servers, hand-curated `autoApprove` lists, custom `env` vars, and any other keys you've added to the recon block all survive a `--force` rerun. Use `--dry-run` first if you want to preview the plan.

**Manual install** — if you'd rather edit by hand, add this to your client's MCP config:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "recon": {
      "command": "recon",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}
```

The default install already includes the MCP server. Keep approvals manual until you've decided which tools, if any, you want to trust automatically.

Then ask your AI: *"Run a recon lookup on contoso.com and tell me what's running."*

See [docs/mcp.md](docs/mcp.md) for the full tool list, advanced agentic workflows, and per-client config locations.

Installed but the tools don't appear? Run `recon doctor --client=<name>` to confirm the config carries the recon stanza, then see the [troubleshooting checklist](docs/mcp.md#when-doctor-passes-but-the-tools-dont-load). The usual fix is a full application restart, since a new chat does not re-spawn MCP servers.

**Claude Code, Kiro, Windsurf, Cursor, VS Code:** per-agent install scaffolds live under [`agents/`](agents/) — one folder per client with its MCP config and guidance template. Claude Code users get a full plugin (MCP + skill in one install) at [`agents/claude-code/`](agents/claude-code/). The skill drives the CLI for the one-shot analyses (lookup, `--exposure` score, `--gaps`, `--fusion` posteriors); the MCP server adds the stateful, iterative workflows (what-if hardening loops, ephemeral fingerprints, live two-domain compare). That folder's README has the breakdown. The portable [`AGENTS.md`](AGENTS.md) at the repo root is auto-detected by Kiro and other agents.md-aware tools.

**Quickest install for AI clients with file-write tools.** Paste this prompt to your AI:

> Fetch `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blisspixel/recon/main/agents/claude-code/skills/recon/SKILL.md` and save it to my Claude Code skills directory (`~/.claude/skills/recon/SKILL.md`) — or to `~/.kiro/skills/recon/SKILL.md` if I'm using Kiro. Then run `pip install recon-tool` and `recon doctor` to verify.

The SKILL.md follows the open [agentskills.io](https://agentskills.io) standard, so the same file works in Claude Code and Kiro.

**Stable JSON schema.** Downstream consumers can validate `recon <domain> --json` output against [`docs/recon-schema.json`](docs/recon-schema.json) ([raw URL](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blisspixel/recon/main/docs/recon-schema.json)). The schema is the v1.0 stability contract documented in [`docs/schema.md`](docs/schema.md); drift between schema and emitter is caught by `tests/test_json_schema_file.py`.

## Limitations

- **Coverage depends on public DNS.** Organizations behind heavy proxies, with minimal DNS records, or that don't publish SaaS verification tokens will return sparse results. This is fundamental to passive-only collection. When sources transiently fail, the CLI tells you which one and why so you can retry or accept the partial answer.
- **Internal workloads are structurally invisible.** Server-side API consumption (an org running internal Google Cloud ML, internal AWS data pipelines, internal Snowflake warehouses without public verification tokens, and so on) leaves no trace in public DNS, CT logs, or unauthenticated identity-discovery endpoints. recon cannot tell you what runs internally; it can only tell you what the org publishes externally. The CLI panel calls this out explicitly: the "Cloud" line surfaces what is observable, and on sparse-but-multi-domain apexes a one-line "Passive-DNS ceiling" footer notes that internal workloads and SaaS without DNS verification do not appear in public DNS records (v1.9.9+). A "Multi-cloud" indicator (v1.9.9+) collapses sibling slugs (Route 53 + CloudFront = one AWS) when the public footprint touches more than one cloud vendor.
- **Heuristic, not ground truth.** The fingerprint database and signal rules are rule-based and solo-maintained. Confident-looking output can still be wrong. The credible interval is the load-bearing field, not the point estimate: by construction, sparse evidence on hardened targets produces a wide interval rather than a confident-looking point estimate, and the `sparse=true` flag in the JSON output is the operator-facing signal that the layer has hit the passive-observation ceiling. Every detection in the catalog carries a description and a vendor doc URL (v1.9.8+), so a finding can be re-verified against the vendor's own documentation before action. Treat results as indicators for investigation, not as definitive assessments. Don't make business decisions based solely on this output. See [docs/correlation.md](docs/correlation.md) for the calibration principles the interval satisfies and the failure-mode catalog across hardening postures.

## Development

```bash
pip install -e ".[dev]"               # or: uv sync --extra dev
pytest tests/                          # full test suite
ruff check recon_tool/                 # lint
pyright recon_tool/                    # type check
pre-commit install                     # activate pre-commit hooks
```

## License

MIT — see [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.

This tool queries only public DNS records and unauthenticated endpoints. See [docs/legal.md](docs/legal.md) for full disclaimer.
