Ghostchars MCP server

by ghostchars·io.github.ghostchars/ghostchars·v1.0.2

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Find and remove invisible Unicode: zero-width, tag smuggling, bidi, homoglyphs. Offline.

B83/100grade B

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Safety scan

B83/100

full report

Adoption

Growing

0 stars160 downloads/wk

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If you have run it, two minutes of your experience saves the next person an afternoon.

Ghostchars tools

No tool declarations could be read from the package source. They show once the server is installed.

Public scan report

scanner v0.1.10 · 2026-10-01 · same rubric, same numbers if you re-run it

1 medium

Code scan14 source files scanned20/25
–Live reliabilityno gateway calls yet and no remote to proben/a
–Tool poisoningtools not inspected (local package is not executed); not countedn/a
Auth qualitylocal package, no credentials required12/15
Maintenancelast push 1 days ago15/15
Maintainer identityregistry namespace matches repository owner7/10

Findings (1)

mediumeval / new Function usedexec.eval

dist/mcp.js: …ode, sch); const makeValidate = new Function(`${names_1.default.self}`, `${names_1.de…

Overall 83/100. Components that don't apply are left out of the denominator. Any critical finding is an F.Rubric Appeal a finding JSON

How Ghostchars compares

Against every graded MCP server, from our own scans and uptime checks. Updated after each scan run.

Safety score: 83/100; higher than 65% of 48,255 servers
Downloads a week: 160; more than 72% of 12,191 servers with a package

Install Ghostchars in Claude Code, Cursor or VS Code

Runs npx -y ghostchars on your machine. Read the scan report first; the gateway never runs local packages.

claude mcp add ghostchars -- npx -y ghostchars

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What the publisher says

From the Ghostchars repository's README, as published. We do not edit it. Read it on GitHub

Ghostchars

Ghostchars finds and removes the characters that hide in text: zero-width spaces, bidi overrides, tag characters, soft hyphens, stray variation selectors, noncharacters, and the typography that reads as machine written. It runs offline. Nothing you clean leaves your machine.

This repository is the engine behind ghostchars.com and the free tools built on it. The same cleaner exists twice, in Python and in TypeScript, and one fixture file proves the two agree on every codepoint.

What is here

Quick start

npx -y ghostchars check --bar text        # the gate: exit 1 if the tree is dirty
pbpaste | npx -y ghostchars clean         # clean the clipboard
./strip_invisible.py --show draft.md      # the reference engine, no install

cli/README.md documents every command, the three bars, ghostchars.json and the agent integrations.

How the two engines stay identical

The Python engine is the specification. tools/gengolden.py runs it over every fixture and records the findings and the cleaned output for each flag combination in web/src/engine/fixtures/golden.json. The TypeScript engine replays that file in its test suite, so a port that disagrees with the reference by one codepoint fails its build. The Unicode property tables the port needs are generated from the same unicodedata snapshot by tools/genunicode_tables.py. Two commands fail when anything drifts:

python3 tools/gen_golden.py --check
python3 tools/gen_unicode_tables.py --check

Working on it

Python 3.10 or newer for the reference engine and the tools. Node 22 or newer with pnpm for cli/ and the engine tests under web/. The tree holds its own prose to the text bar with its own CLI: ghostchars.json at the root names the surface and its pins, and npx -y ghostchars check from the root runs it.

The Mac app and the Chrome extension are built on this engine and available at ghostchars.com.

Issues

Bugs and questions about the engine or the CLI go to github.com/ghostchars/ghostchars/issues.

Licence

MIT, with the Unicode licence covering the generated character tables. See LICENSE. The npm package carries its own copy with the notices for what it bundles.

Nothing above is checked by us. What we check is on the safety report.

Ghostchars: common questions

Is Ghostchars MCP server safe?: Mostly: it is graded B (83/100). Read the Ghostchars safety report
How do I install Ghostchars?: It runs on your machine. Copy the Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code or Claude Desktop config from the install section.
Does Ghostchars need an API key?: Not as far as the registry entry and our scan can tell: no credentials are declared or required.
Is Ghostchars maintained?: The last commit was 36 days ago (2026-09-29). The latest release is v1.0.2.
How does Ghostchars compare with other MCP servers?: safety score 83/100 (higher than 65% of 48,255 servers); downloads a week 160 (more than 72% of 12,191 servers with a package). Full comparison.