Find notes with no incoming backlinks and no outgoing wikilinks.
AI agents call get_orphans to retrieve information from Mcp Obsidian 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 analysis of the vault's link structure, identifying orphaned notes by querying their backlink and outlink status. It has no side effects—no data is created, modified, deleted, or executed. The blast radius is minimal as misuse would only return analytical information about the vault structure.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'get_orphans' and description 'Find notes with no incoming backlinks and no outgoing wikilinks' indicate a query operation that retrieves information about note relationships without modifying any data.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Find notes with no incoming backlinks and no outgoing wikilinks. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Mcp Obsidian MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Mcp Obsidian MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for get_orphans: 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 Mcp Obsidian. Nothing to install.
get_orphans 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 get_orphans 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 get_orphans. 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.
get_orphans is provided by the Mcp Obsidian MCP server (jkang8/mcp-obsidian). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Every MCP server has a record like this.
Type a name, get the same breakdown: verified identity, auth posture, risk grade, capabilities, recommended policy.
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