--- title: Building a Custom Architecture and Platform: Part 1 description: A deep technical walkthrough of building a custom architecture plugin for Binary Ninja, targeting a fictional 32-bit register-based VM called Quark. Covers... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Building a Custom Architecture and Platform: Part 1 | daily.dev og:description: A deep technical walkthrough of building a custom architecture plugin for Binary Ninja, targeting a fictional 32-bit register-based VM called Quark. Covers... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/BQ53woSEP.png og:image:alt: Building a Custom Architecture and Platform: Part 1 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Building a Custom Architecture and Platform: Part 1 **[Binary Ninja](https://daily.dev/sources/binary-ninja)** · 17 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A deep technical walkthrough of building a custom architecture plugin for Binary Ninja, targeting a fictional 32-bit register-based VM called Quark. Covers defining an Architecture subclass, decoding 4-byte instructions via bit-shifts, generating disassembly text, wiring up control flow analysis for basic block splitting, and adding optional features like binary patching (NOP conversion, branch inversion, skip-and-return) and a custom assembler. This is Part 1 of a three-part series; later parts cover lifting to Pseudo-C and platform-level features like calling conventions and type libraries. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do you add support for a custom instruction set architecture in Binary Ninja? Define a subclass of Architecture specifying metadata like endianness, address size, and registers, then implement get_instruction_info and get_instruction_text to decode bytes into disassembly tokens, and add branch information via InstructionInfo.add_branch so Binary Ninja can split basic blocks and identify functions automatically. _daily.dev surfaces deep guides like this for engineers extending reverse engineering tools with custom architectures._ ### How can I let Binary Ninja assemble custom instructions for my architecture plugin? Override the can_assemble property to return True and implement an assemble method that converts assembly text into raw bytes, raising a ValueError on syntax errors. Binary Ninja only provides the assembly text and the address of the first instruction, so relative offsets must be computed manually, and shorter results get padded with NOPs from the convert_to_nop patch function. _track practical API patterns like this on daily.dev when building tooling around binary analysis frameworks._ ### What new Binary Ninja Architecture API feature lets instruction decoding use context from other instructions? Recent additions to the Architecture API allow overriding AnalyzeBasicBlocks, the analysis stage responsible for disassembling an entire function, which lets get_instruction_text_with_context receive surrounding context data instead of decoding instructions one at a time in isolation. This addresses architectures where instruction meaning depends on prior instructions or data elsewhere in the binary. _developers adapting disassemblers to stateful instruction sets can follow API changes like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Pushing the limits of RISC-V emulation](https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-of-risc-v-emulation-dxh7xvq1d) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building Your Own Operating System From Scratch \(A Practical Getting-Started Guide\)](https://daily.dev/posts/building-your-own-operating-system-from-scratch-a-practical-getting-started-guide--bcelcqpq7) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Binary Ninja 6.0 \(Krypton\)](https://daily.dev/posts/binary-ninja-6-0-krypton--lvq5myq9k) · Binary Ninja · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Assembly for Malware Analysis](https://daily.dev/posts/assembly-for-malware-analysis-jbprx1c2d) · InfoSec Write-ups · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#python](https://daily.dev/tags/python), [#reverse-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/reverse-engineering) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Building a Custom Architecture and Platform: Part 1","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:16:59.610Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:19:55.776Z","description":"A deep technical walkthrough of building a custom architecture plugin for Binary Ninja, targeting a fictional 32-bit register-based VM called Quark. Covers...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--58gMhC4P--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2012","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--58gMhC4P--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2012","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Binary Ninja","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Binary Ninja","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--luR82Bod--/f_auto,q_auto/v1787487415/logos/binary-ninja?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/binary-ninja"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"python,reverse-engineering","timeRequired":"PT17M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Binary Ninja","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/binary-ninja"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Building a Custom Architecture and Platform: Part 1"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-custom-architecture-and-platform-part-1-bq53wosep#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you add support for a custom instruction set architecture in Binary Ninja?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Define a subclass of Architecture specifying metadata like endianness, address size, and registers, then implement get_instruction_info and get_instruction_text to decode bytes into disassembly tokens, and add branch information via InstructionInfo.add_branch so Binary Ninja can split basic blocks and identify functions automatically. daily.dev surfaces deep guides like this for engineers extending reverse engineering tools with custom architectures."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How can I let Binary Ninja assemble custom instructions for my architecture plugin?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Override the can_assemble property to return True and implement an assemble method that converts assembly text into raw bytes, raising a ValueError on syntax errors. Binary Ninja only provides the assembly text and the address of the first instruction, so relative offsets must be computed manually, and shorter results get padded with NOPs from the convert_to_nop patch function. track practical API patterns like this on daily.dev when building tooling around binary analysis frameworks."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What new Binary Ninja Architecture API feature lets instruction decoding use context from other instructions?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Recent additions to the Architecture API allow overriding AnalyzeBasicBlocks, the analysis stage responsible for disassembling an entire function, which lets get_instruction_text_with_context receive surrounding context data instead of decoding instructions one at a time in isolation. This addresses architectures where instruction meaning depends on prior instructions or data elsewhere in the binary. developers adapting disassemblers to stateful instruction sets can follow API changes like this on daily.dev."}}]} ```