AI agents call vault_status to retrieve information from Project Tessera without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool performs a read-only operation to check the encryption status of a vault. It does not create, modify, delete, execute code, or move financial assets. The blast radius of misuse is minimal—an attacker could only learn that a vault is encrypted, which provides no direct access to sensitive data. The operation is informational only and has no side effects.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'vault_status' and description 'Get vault encryption status' indicate a query operation that retrieves status information without modification.
Documented attack patterns abuse exactly the kind of access vault_status gives an agent:
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway — it sits between your AI agents and Project Tessera, and nothing reaches the server without passing your rules. This is the rule we recommend for vault_status:
{
"version": "1",
"default": "deny",
"tools": {
"vault_status": {}
}
}vault_status is read-only, so it stays allowed — but everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
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Get vault encryption status. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Project Tessera MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Project Tessera MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for vault_status: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Project Tessera. Nothing to install.
vault_status is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the vault_status rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for vault_status. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
vault_status is provided by the Project Tessera MCP server (besslframework-stack/project-tessera). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Start from Project Tessera, add the rest of your stack, and see everything your agents can call. Then put policy on all of it.
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43 Project Tessera tools catalogued and risk-classified — across an index of 43,000+ MCP servers.