books.gutendex.search
Search 78K+ public-domain books on Project Gutenberg by free-text query, language (ISO 639-1), topic, or author birth year. Returns book IDs, titles, authors, languages, subjects, download counts, and EPUB/TXT/HTML/cover URLs (Gutendex MIT)
This record as markdown: /tools/io-github-whiteknightonhorse-apibase/books.gutendex.search.md
What books.gutendex.search does on Apibase
AI agents call books.gutendex.search to retrieve information from Apibase without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
limit | integer | — | Max results to return (default 20, max 50). |
query | string | — | Free-text search across title, author name, and subject (e.g. "shakespeare", "moby dick"). |
topic | string | — | Subject/bookshelf topic filter (e.g. "Adventure", "Children's literature"). |
language | string | — | ISO 639-1 language code or comma-separated codes to filter by language (e.g. "en", "fr,de"). |
author_year_end | integer | — | Filter by author birth year — only include books from authors alive up to this year. |
author_year_start | integer | — | Filter by author birth year — only include books from authors alive in this period start. |
Parameters from the server's own tool schema.
Why books.gutendex.search is rated Low
Tool retrieves publicly available book metadata with no write, delete, execute, or financial operations.
From the tool's definition Search 78K+ public-domain books, returns book IDs, titles, authors, languages, subjects, download counts, URLs
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs books.gutendex.search safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Apibase, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For books.gutendex.search, this is the rule to start with:
books.gutendex.search 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 Apibase, apply this rule, and every books.gutendex.search call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about books.gutendex.search
Search 78K+ public-domain books on Project Gutenberg by free-text query, language (ISO 639-1), topic, or author birth year. Returns book IDs, titles, authors, languages, subjects, download counts, and EPUB/TXT/HTML/cover URLs (Gutendex MIT). It is categorised as a Read tool in the Apibase MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
books.gutendex.search accepts 6 parameters: limit, query, topic, language, author_year_end, author_year_start. The full parameter table on this page comes from the server's own tool schema.
Register the Apibase MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for books.gutendex.search: 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 Apibase. Nothing to install.
books.gutendex.search 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 books.gutendex.search 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 books.gutendex.search. 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.
books.gutendex.search is provided by the Apibase MCP server (apibase-mcp-client). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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