federation_bbs_watch
agentbbs — Poll recent envelopes from a BBS room (ADR-164 Phase 1). Returns envelopes newer than the optional sinceEnvelopeId, up to limit. Use when a pod agent needs to see incoming human overrides, new tasks, or peer events posted to its room. Polling memory_search for the room namespace is wro...
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What federation_bbs_watch does on Claude Flow
AI agents call federation_bbs_watch to retrieve information from Claude Flow without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
Why federation_bbs_watch is rated Low
This tool performs a polling query operation on a message/envelope log to retrieve recent entries. It has no side effects—it does not create, modify, delete, or execute operations.
From the tool's definition The tool 'Poll recent envelopes from a BBS room' and 'Returns envelopes newer than' indicates querying/retrieving data. The description explicitly states it 'reads the canonical envelope log directly' without modifying it.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs federation_bbs_watch safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Claude Flow, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For federation_bbs_watch, this is the rule to start with:
federation_bbs_watch is read-only, so it stays allowed. Everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
The button opens the PolicyLayer dashboard: create your workspace, connect Claude Flow, apply this rule, and every federation_bbs_watch call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about federation_bbs_watch
agentbbs — Poll recent envelopes from a BBS room (ADR-164 Phase 1). Returns envelopes newer than the optional sinceEnvelopeId, up to limit. Use when a pod agent needs to see incoming human overrides, new tasks, or peer events posted to its room. Polling memory_search for the room namespace is wrong because it loses the monotonic seq ordering and re-runs PII gating per query; this tool reads the canonical envelope log directly. Phase 1 is polling — Phase 4 layers streaming on the same surface. Optional dep — degrades to {degraded:true} when missing. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Claude Flow MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Claude Flow MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for federation_bbs_watch: 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 Claude Flow. Nothing to install.
federation_bbs_watch 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 federation_bbs_watch 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 federation_bbs_watch. 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.
federation_bbs_watch is provided by the Claude Flow MCP server (claude-flow). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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