AI agents call get-role-hierarchy to retrieve information from Aria without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and returns hierarchical information about W3C WAI-ARIA roles without creating, modifying, deleting, or executing any operations. It is purely informational, supporting developers in understanding role inheritance relationships. Even if misused by an agent, the worst outcome is incorrect or irrelevant information returned—no destructive, financial, or operational consequences.
From the tool's definition The tool name 'get-role-hierarchy' and description 'Get the inheritance hierarchy for a role, showing parent and child roles' indicate a query operation that retrieves structured information about ARIA role relationships.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Get the inheritance hierarchy for a role, showing parent and child roles. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Aria MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Aria MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for get-role-hierarchy: 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 Aria. Nothing to install.
get-role-hierarchy 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-role-hierarchy 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-role-hierarchy. 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-role-hierarchy is provided by the Aria MCP server (joe-watkins/aria-mcp). 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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