mcp-permission-audit 1.1.3

MCP Permission Auditor — scan, enumerate, and risk-score all locally configured MCP servers

mcp-audit

You're giving AI direct access to your computer. Do you actually know what you've installed?

mcp-audit gives you x-ray vision into every MCP server configured on your system: what it can do, how risky it is, whether its descriptions are hiding adversarial instructions, and whether it's changed since you last looked. It is local-first, needs no API key by default, and makes networked LLM analysis opt-in.

PyPI package: mcp-permission-audit. Installed command: mcp-audit.

Features

• Capability inventory — catalogs server tools, prompts, and resources; tool, prompt, and resource capabilities are classified across six permission categories: file_read, file_write, network, shell_execution, destructive, exfiltration
• Config-only inference — scan --skip-connect infers conservative risks from declared commands, transports, credential key names, package runners, and remote URLs
• Risk scoring — composite 0–10 per server as a weighted sum of tool permission categories, with a five-dimension breakdown (file access, network, shell, destructive, exfiltration); prompt/resource findings also produce an additive non_tool_risk signal without changing risk_score.composite
• Stable finding metadata — permission and prompt-injection findings include stable rule IDs, severity, evidence, and suggested remediation so reports are easier to triage
• Local policy gates — scan --policy policy.yaml evaluates reports against local YAML rules and exits nonzero for CI enforcement
• Report redaction — terminal, JSON, and SARIF report paths share a redaction layer for likely credential values
• Prompt injection detection — scan --inject-check scans tool, prompt, and resource text for instruction-override patterns, hidden directives, fake role turns, and adversarial phrasing; pattern-based, no LLM required
• Schema drift tracking — mcp-audit pin connects to servers and snapshots current tool schemas; subsequent scan --pin-check flags added, removed, and changed tools with plain-language summaries, changed-field hints, suggested actions, and a dry-run refresh workflow for reviewed upgrades
• Multi-client support — reads configs from Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VSCode, and Windsurf — plus custom paths via --config; use --config-only for isolated scans of one config file
• Structured output — Rich terminal report plus JSON and SARIF 2.1.0 export for ingestion by GitHub Advanced Security and SARIF-aware SAST pipelines
• Documented output contract — JSON, SARIF rule IDs, and policy exit codes are documented in docs/OUTPUT-CONTRACT.md
• Watch mode — mcp-audit watch re-scans on config file changes via watchfiles (optional extra: install with mcp-permission-audit[watch])

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• uv (recommended) or pip

Installation

uvx --from mcp-permission-audit mcp-audit discover
# or install permanently:
uv tool install mcp-permission-audit
# with watch mode support:
uv tool install 'mcp-permission-audit[watch]'

Usage

mcp-audit --version

# Discover configured MCP servers without connecting to them
mcp-audit discover

# Scan all configured MCP servers
mcp-audit scan

# Config-only scan that does not spawn or connect to servers
mcp-audit scan --skip-connect

# Filter to specific clients (comma-separated)
mcp-audit scan --clients claude_desktop,cursor

# Scan only one explicit MCP config file
mcp-audit scan --config ./mcp.json --config-only

# Check tools, prompts, and resources for prompt-injection patterns
mcp-audit scan --inject-check

# Pin current tool schemas, then detect drift on later scans.
# Pinning connects to servers so it can capture real tool schemas.
mcp-audit pin
mcp-audit pin --status
mcp-audit pin --status --json
mcp-audit pin --stale
mcp-audit pin --stale --json
mcp-audit scan --pin-check

# Review expected drift for one server before refreshing its baseline.
mcp-audit pin --refresh github
mcp-audit pin --refresh github --json
mcp-audit pin --refresh github --apply

# Export JSON or SARIF 2.1.0
mcp-audit scan --json audit.json --sarif audit.sarif

# Fail CI on local policy violations
mcp-audit scan --policy policy.yaml

# Optional LLM-assisted classification (requires ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)
mcp-audit scan --llm-analysis

# Watch mode — re-scan on config change; use --skip-connect for config-only watching
mcp-audit watch

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Python 3.11+
CLI	Click 8
Output	Rich
MCP protocol	mcp SDK 1.27+
Validation	Pydantic v2
Config parsing	PyYAML + json5
Watch mode	watchfiles (optional extra)
Optional LLM	Anthropic SDK

Architecture

The scanner enumerates MCP client config files, connects to each configured server, and calls tools/list, prompts/list, and resources/list over the MCP protocol when those capabilities are available. Stdio servers are started as subprocesses via anyio; HTTP/SSE servers are contacted at their configured URL. Returned tool schemas, prompt arguments, and resource URIs flow into the permission classifier (schema walker + regex ruleset over six permission categories) and the optional injection detector (pattern ruleset for instruction-override, role-switch, and hidden-directive phrasing). The risk scorer composes a per-category weighted sum clamped to 0–10 from tool findings, then separately reports additive non_tool_risk for prompt and resource capability or injection findings. non_tool_risk is for triage and output consumers; it does not change risk_score.composite. Reports render via Rich; JSON and SARIF 2.1.0 export are first-class. The pin store serializes SHA256 schema hashes plus reviewable tool snapshots to ~/.mcp-audit-pins.yaml for actionable drift detection on subsequent --pin-check scans. Use mcp-audit pin --refresh <server> to preview expected drift for one reviewed server, then rerun with --apply to replace that server's pins. Use mcp-audit pin --stale to review pinned servers that are no longer present in discovered MCP configs before clearing them explicitly with mcp-audit pin --clear <server>.

Local Policy Gates

Policies are local YAML files evaluated after a scan. A failing policy exits with code 2 after terminal, JSON, or SARIF output is written.

fail_on:
  severity: high
  injection: medium
  capabilities: medium
  drift: true
require:
  pins:
    servers:
      - github
deny:
  permissions:
    - shell_execution
max_risk: 7
allow_servers:
  - github
servers:
  github:
    max_risk: 5
    deny:
      permissions:
        - shell_execution

See docs/ADOPTION-GUIDE.md for local review, team CI, and GitHub code scanning setup paths. See docs/1.1-ADOPTION.md for non_tool_risk parsing examples and policy selection notes, and examples/consumers/ for runnable JSON consumer examples. See examples/policies/ for starter policies. See docs/GOLDEN-ROLLOUT.md for the recommended config-only to policy-gated rollout path. See docs/STABLE-READINESS.md for the stable-release bar. See docs/PIN-MAINTENANCE.md for reviewed pin refresh and stale server cleanup workflows. See docs/PROMPT-RESOURCE-SCORING.md and docs/SCORING-MIGRATION.md for the current prompt/resource scoring boundary and migration path. See examples/ci/pin-stale-review.yml and examples/maintenance/stale-pin-review.sh for routine stale pin review flows. See docs/FEEDBACK-TO-FIXTURES.md for turning false positives, missing detections, output issues, and pin lifecycle feedback into safe regression fixtures. See docs/ROADMAP-1.1.md for additive product depth lanes.

License

MIT