Overview

Teams is an add-on for IDA that provides revision control for IDA database files. It enables multiple reverse engineers to collaborate on the same database by offering native diff and merge capabilities directly within IDA.

Starting with IDA 9.3, the Hex-Rays Vault visual client (HVUI) has been deprecated. Its functionality is now fully integrated into IDA and is available through the Teams top-level menu, eliminating the need for a separate external application. The overall workflow and widget names remain mostly unchanged, enabling a quick transition to the new integrated Teams.

Built around familiar version control concepts, Teams lets you track changes, understand who contributed what, and manage collaborative reverse engineering workflows efficiently, all without leaving your IDA environment.

Teams is available as an add-on for supported IDA Pro plans.

Teams Architecture Overview

Teams uses a client–server architecture similar to that of traditional revision control systems:

• Server: the Teams server, also referred to as the Hex-Rays vault server, maintains a complete ledger of operations performed on the files it hosts, including modifications, additions, and deletions. The server should be accessible to all team members working on shared projects. It comes with dedicated installer, available from the My Hex-Rays portal or via HCLI. Responsible for deploying and maintaining the server? Refer to the Admin Guide for installation and common administrative tasks.

• Client: an IDA instance with an active license with the Teams add-on enabled, installed on each user’s machine.

  • Command-line client: "hv", a command-line interface is a complementary tool available out of the box in the IDA installation directory.

Together, these components allow users to interact with the server, review the history of changes, and organize their collaborative reversers' work.

Although Hex-Rays Vault will host any file you want, its primary use-case is to allow users to keep a history, and allow collaborative work on, IDA databases (i.e., .idb and .i64 files.) Throughout the docs, we will be using the terms "idbs" and "files" interchangeably.

Online vs Offline Usage

Teams is designed to support flexible workflows. Users do not need to remain connected to the server at all times and can work offline as needed. A connection is only required when publishing changes so they become available to other team members.