Agent access control
Agent access control in MCP Gateway lets you manage which tools and services each agent can use through a toggle-based user interface. This makes it easy to maintain fine-grained control over what actions an agent can perform, all from within the MCP Gateway interface.
Every agent has an access control section that defines its tool permissions. You can grant full access to all tools or limit access to specific tool groups created in your tool catalog.
Why agent access control matters
Without explicit access controls, agents can call any tool on any connected MCP server, including tools they do not need. This creates excessive agency, an Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) MCP Top 10 risk where over-privileged agents become a security liability. Agent access control gives you per-agent scope at the gateway layer, so each agent only sees the tools it needs for its job.
Using the agent access modal
- Open the MCP Gateway user interface.
- Select an agent to open its settings modal.
- In the Tools Access section, select one of the following:
- All Server Tools: The agent can use all available tools.
- Tool Groups: Enable or disable specific tool groups.
- Turn access on or off for each group or service as needed.
Default access rules
If you haven't created any tool groups yet, MCP Gateway automatically enables All Server Tools. As soon as tool groups exist, you can select which tool groups the agent can access. This provides flexibility while maintaining secure defaults. Refer to Tool groups for more information about creating and managing tool groups.
MCP Gateway follows the MCP specifications for List Changed Notification. When MCP Gateway recognizes that a user made changes to a tool, it notifies the client by sending a list_changed notification. However, not all clients support this notification yet, so you may need to restart your client in order to see the updated tool access.
