List all contact groups with member counts. Requires Contacts access.
AI agents call contacts.list_groups to retrieve information from Orchard without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and enumerates contact group metadata from the Contacts application without creating, modifying, or deleting any data. It is a pure read operation with minimal blast radius—exposure would only leak the names and sizes of user contact groups, not sensitive contact details themselves.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'list_groups' and description 'List all contact groups' indicate data retrieval only. No modification, deletion, or execution occurs. The phrase 'with member counts' confirms it returns query results.
Documented attack patterns abuse exactly the kind of access contacts.list_groups gives an agent:
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway — it sits between your AI agents and Orchard, and nothing reaches the server without passing your rules. This is the rule we recommend for contacts.list_groups:
{
"version": "1",
"default": "deny",
"tools": {
"contacts.list_groups": {}
}
}contacts.list_groups is read-only, so it stays allowed — but everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
Free to start. No card required.
List all contact groups with member counts. Requires Contacts access. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Orchard MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Orchard MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for contacts.list_groups: 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 Orchard. Nothing to install.
contacts.list_groups 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 contacts.list_groups 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 contacts.list_groups. 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.
contacts.list_groups is provided by the Orchard MCP server (l22-io/orchard-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Start from Orchard, add the rest of your stack, and see everything your agents can call. Then put policy on all of it.
Free to start. No card required.
65 Orchard tools catalogued and risk-classified — across an index of 43,000+ MCP servers.