sandbroker MCP server

A stdio Model Context Protocol server that lets any MCP host (Claude Code and others) natively drive the sandbroker broker. The model can USE secrets through pinned verbs but can NEVER SEE their values.

It is a thin MCP wrapper over the exact same daemon protocol bin/sandbroker speaks. It adds no new daemon-side surface: it consumes the existing catalog and invoke actions only.

What it exposes

The human-only, direct-socket actions (lock, status, set_retention) are not exposed. Those are operator actions, not model actions.

Security guarantee (values never cross the tool boundary)

The product promise holds structurally, not by filtering:

• sandbroker's response schema has no field a secret value can occupy. A verb returns the OUTCOME of an operation ({ok} / {error}), never its output.
• This server passes through only the daemon's own typed keys (ok, error, verb, items, status, retry_after) and re-filters them on ingress as defense in depth, so even a tampered daemon reply cannot smuggle an extra field to the model.
• This server never reads a secret from anywhere; it holds no tokens.

The approval code surfaced on a confirm-tier request is not a secret: it is a one-time code the human types into the Windows approval window. Only its sha256(sid:code) hash is ever sent to the daemon; the plaintext lives only in the chat and the human's typing, exactly as with sandbroker.

Transports

Two transports, tried in sandbroker's order, so this works sandboxed or not:

1. Direct UNIX socket to sandbroker (SANDBROKER_SOCKET, default /opt/sandbroker/run/sandbroker.sock). This is the normal path: the MCP server runs UNSANDBOXED, launched over stdio by the host.
2. File-queue bridge (SANDBROKER_BRIDGE_DIR, default /tmp/sandbroker-bridge) for parity with sandboxed contexts whose seccomp filter blocks AF_UNIX connect. The per-session queue carries only the operation in and {ok,error} out, never a value.

Environment variables

Install

pipx install sandbroker-mcp     # puts the `sandbroker-mcp` command on PATH

From a checkout instead: cd mcp && python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install . (provides the sandbroker-mcp console script and python -m sandbroker_mcp).

Register in Claude Code

After pipx install sandbroker-mcp, the command is on PATH:

claude mcp add sandbroker --scope user -- sandbroker-mcp

From a checkout venv instead, point at its absolute path, e.g. /path/to/mcp/.venv/bin/sandbroker-mcp.

Pass a non-default socket or force a transport with --env:

claude mcp add sandbroker --scope user \
  --env SANDBROKER_SOCKET=/opt/sandbroker/run/sandbroker.sock \
  -- sandbroker-mcp

settings.json snippet (equivalent)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sandbroker": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/mcp/.venv/bin/sandbroker-mcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "SANDBROKER_SOCKET": "/opt/sandbroker/run/sandbroker.sock"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage flow

1. secret_catalog(vault="Dev") -> discover item ids/titles. Build a ref like op://Dev/<id-or-title>/password.
2. secret_invoke(verb="canary.probe", ref="file://canary") -> auto-tier verbs return {ok:true} immediately.
3. Confirm-tier vaults (e.g. Production, Infra) require one human approval:
   • First call returns {ok:false, error:"hello_pending"} plus a 6-digit approval_code in guidance.
   • Relay the code to the human. They type it into the Windows approval window and approve with Windows Hello.
   • Call secret_invoke again with the same verb/ref/justification to poll. You will see hello_waiting until they confirm, then ok.
   • An auditor-enabled vault may instead return auditor_reviewing; just call again with the same arguments. The daemon fail-closes to a human by its own deadline.

secret_invoke requires a justification for confirm-tier vaults (a short, human-readable reason). Never put a secret in args; secrets come only from the ref.

Relationship to sandbroker

This server mirrors bin/sandbroker exactly: same request shape, same per-invocation code + code_hash derivation, same auditor retry loop (sleep retry_after, re-send the same request, up to 6 times). The difference is surface only: sandbroker writes human banners to stderr; this server returns that guidance in the tool result so the model relays it to the human.