read_file

What read_file does on Terminal Guardian

AI agents call read_file to retrieve information from Terminal Guardian without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.

Why read_file is rated Low

This tool retrieves file contents without side effects. It is clearly a Read operation. Severity is low because file reading alone poses minimal risk in a sandboxed environment, though confidence is not perfect (0.95 rather than 1.0) because the actual risk depends on what files are in the 'allowed paths' list—if sensitive credentials or private keys are accessible, severity could increase, but based on the…

From the tool's definition Tool name is 'read_file' and description states it 'Read[s] the contents of a file' with no mention of modification, deletion, or execution. Access restrictions and file size limits further indicate this is a bounded read operation.

The rule that runs read_file safely

PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Terminal Guardian, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For read_file, this is the rule to start with:

{
  "version": "1",
  "default": "deny",
  "tools": {
    "read_file": {}
  }
}

Questions about read_file