performance_start_trace

What performance_start_trace does on Unreal-MCP

AI agents invoke performance_start_trace to trigger actions in Unreal-MCP. What it does depends on the arguments the agent supplies, and its effects often reach beyond the immediate call: builds kicked off, notifications sent, workflows started.

Why performance_start_trace is rated High

Performance tracing starts an instrumented monitoring process within the Unreal Engine editor. While not immediately destructive or financially impactful, it executes a system operation that could impact editor performance, consume resources, or interfere with ongoing work. The empty description lowers confidence slightly, but the name strongly suggests an Execute-category action (triggering an external operation).

From the tool's definition Tool name 'performance_start_trace' indicates initiation of performance tracing/profiling in Unreal Engine 5 editor. This triggers an external operation (performance monitoring) whose effects depend on runtime behavior and subsequent trace collection.

The rule that runs performance_start_trace safely

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

{
  "version": "1",
  "default": "deny",
  "tools": {
    "performance_start_trace": {
      "limits": [
        {
          "counter": "performance_start_trace_rate",
          "window": "minute",
          "max": 10,
          "scope": "grant"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Questions about performance_start_trace