The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the WARDEN — MCP Security Firewall listing page.
🔄 Synced from a monorepo — but with a live history.
wardenmirrors the canonical AI-Factory monorepo. History here is append-only (no force-push). Pull requests are welcome — merged PRs are imported back into the monorepo and re-synced here, so your contribution becomes canonical. 💬 Issues · Pull requests both welcome.
One MCP server. Security firewall for advertised tool definitions. Library included.
Transport: stdio (npx -y @aimarket/warden / node dist/mcp-server.js). Compatible hosts:
Claude Desktop, Cursor, Glama, and any MCP client that speaks stdio. No API keys.
| Item | Location |
|---|---|
| MCP entrypoint (stdio) | warden-mcp → src/mcp-server.ts |
| Tools | vet_mcp_server, static_scan_tools, classify_sensitive_tools, check_egress_url, canonicalize_json, list_scan_rules |
| Library | import { Warden } from "@aimarket/warden" |
| Glama / Docker (stdio) | Dockerfile, glama.json |
| Official MCP Registry | server.json → io.github.alexar76/warden |
| Smithery | smithery.yaml |
An MCP server tells your agent what its tools do. The agent believes it — that sentence is the
attack surface. A tool description is prompt text delivered by a third party straight into your
model's context, and a schema field named api_key is a request for your secrets phrased as an API.
WARDEN vets a server before any of its tools reach the model, and returns a verdict you can record: allow/block, a 0..1 score, the findings that produced it, a per-tool partition, and the exact rule table that was in force.
Zero npm runtime dependencies. The library's only import is node:crypto. The stdio MCP
server adds other node: builtins (fs, path, process) and still pulls in no packages. It is
the firewall out of ARGUS, extracted so you can put it in front
of your own MCP host without adopting an agent.
Claude Desktop / Cursor (mcpServers entry):
The process never starts, proxies, or sandboxes another MCP server — you pass a tools/list dump
in, you get a verdict out.
| Tool | When to use |
|---|---|
vet_mcp_server | Full gate chain on a server identity + advertised tools |
static_scan_tools | Injection / exfil scan only (no origin / pinning / threat feed) |
classify_sensitive_tools | Operator glob split — not an injection scan |
check_egress_url | Hostname allowlist (empty list denies every host) |
canonicalize_json | RFC 8785 bytes for feeds and pins |
list_scan_rules | Published rule table + digest |
Glama TDQS: MCP annotations (readOnly / destructive / idempotent / openWorld), when-to-use /
when-not naming siblings, every inputSchema property described, outputSchema on every tool.
Listing: glama.ai/mcp/servers/alexar76/warden · quality score: glama.ai/mcp/servers/alexar76/warden/score
Same pattern as ARGUS and
aimarket-mcp: repo-root glama.json +
Dockerfile + node dist/mcp-server.js. Admin form values: docs/GLAMA.md.
vet() performs no network I/O. The only request WARDEN ever makes is the threat-feed fetch you
asked for by passing a URL to load().
| Gate | What it decides | Network | Fatal? |
|---|---|---|---|
| static-scan | Injection, exfiltration, credential requests and hidden-Unicode/base64 tells in the tool name, its description and its inputSchema — 25 rules, v4, of which 15 can block and 10 are advisory-only, 17 also cover the name, and 12 carry a context guard | none | no |
| threat-feed | Known-bad server identity or tool, from 11 built-in records plus an optional signed feed | only the feed fetch | yes, for a server-scoped critical |
| origin | Whether the operator declared this server or it arrived from a remote catalog | none | yes, under allowUnknownServers: false |
| pinning | Whether the tool defs still match what the user approved | none | yes, under pinToolDefs: true |
The composite score is the product of gate contributions, so one bad gate drags the whole server
down rather than being averaged away. Severity and blocking are separate axes: an advisory finding
is reported and never blocks and never costs a tool, at any blockAtSeverity — because "how much
attention does this deserve" and "is this a defect at all" are different questions, and encoding the
second as a low severity made it blocking again for anyone who tightened the threshold.
rulesets is not decoration. The same server scores differently under a later rule table, and
without the version and a digest over the rules there is no way to tell that apart from the server
having changed. A stored scan without them is not reproducible.
WARDEN will not read an unsigned remote feed. The contract is deliberately boring:
Three properties are checked, and any failure keeps the built-in floor rather than degrading to no protection:
feedPublicKey);maxAgeMs (24 h by default), so whoever
serves the URL cannot replay a months-old snapshot and silently erase every record added since.
A signature says who wrote a document, never when you were handed it;MOMUS is a reference publisher of this contract
(/warden/threat-feed) if you want something to point load() at.
EgressGuard — an outbound allowlist to wrap any request a tool makes. A tool reaching a host
you never listed is the classic phone-home tell. *.example.com matches subdomains; an empty
allowlist blocks everything rather than allowing everything.isSensitiveTool / classifyTools — glob classification of tools that must require per-call
approval. Sensitive tools stay advertised; they just cannot run unattended.canonicalize / parseJsonStrict — a strict RFC 8785 (JCS) implementation, also exported as
@aimarket/warden/jcs so another implementation can be byte-checked against it. Integers only
beyond MAX_SAFE_JSON_INTEGER, refusal (not escaping) on lone surrogates, and a reason code on
every refusal.| The gate chain | Every rule tier, every finding code, how the composite score is built, and how to add a gate |
| The signed threat feed | The wire contract, the three checks, and how to publish a feed WARDEN will accept |
| Integration guide | Wiring WARDEN into your own MCP host, policy choices, and what to record |
| Field survey: 1 108 public MCP servers | What WARDEN decided on real third-party tool definitions — 50 servers blocked, 4 substantiated, and the six ways the rest were wrong |
| Glama / Docker | stdio MCP server, health check, admin Build steps / CMD |
| MCP registries | Official Registry, Smithery, mcp.so / Pulse |
| Security | How to report a firewall bypass |
| Contributing | Zero-dep rule, ruleset PRs |
sandbox-exec) is not here.vet() is fast, offline and
deterministic — and why the static scan is regex-shaped and will miss a paraphrase no rule covers.test/no-phantom-gate.test.ts fails if any gate ever claims unreachability
again.test/packaging.test.ts is what keeps the headline honest: it fails if an npm runtime dependency
appears, if any source file imports outside the package (except node: builtins), or if the entry
point stops exporting the enforcement surface. test/mcp-server.test.ts is the Glama health
check: initialize + tools/list + a tools/call.
Used by ARGUS (the reference host), MOMUS (the publisher side), and the AICOM MCP-security course.
MIT © AICOM (alexar76)