What is Hekate?
~5 min read · Third-party project overview
Hekate (by CTCaer) is a GUI bootloader and NAND tool for the Switch. It runs as a standalone payload sent over RCM and shows a menu the moment your Switch wakes. Most people who launch CFW (like Atmosphère) go through Hekate.
What it does
- CFW launcher — boot Atmosphère on SysMMC or EmuMMC.
- NAND backup / restore — dump
rawnand.bin wholesale to SD. This is the killer feature.
- SD partitioning — carve out a RAW partition for EmuMMC.
- EmuMMC creation — clone SysMMC onto SD to make a virtual NAND.
- Low-level utilities — archive bit fix, JC pairing reset, BIS key dump.
- Nyx GUI — touch-friendly main menu.
Minimum-viable usage
- Download the latest
hekate_ctcaer_X.X.X.zip from GitHub.
- Extract the
bootloader/ folder to your SD root.
- Put your Switch into RCM with a jig + USB-C.
- Send
hekate_ctcaer_X.X.X.bin with TegraRcmGUI or similar.
- From the menu, go Tools → Backup eMMC. Do this first, every time.
If you brick without a backup, there's no path back. Always dump rawnand.bin / BOOT0 / BOOT1 before doing anything else.
Relation to the secretchat.tel loader
Our loader requires Atmosphère, but it doesn't care how you start Atmosphère. Hekate is the most common bootloader path; modchips and other entry points work equally well. Either way, Hekate's NAND backup feature is strongly recommended for loader users too — insurance against bricking.
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