Compact gateway to Entrez E-utilities with smart defaults and staging hooks.
AI agents call entrez-query to retrieve information from Entrez MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool provides programmatic access to NCBI's biomedical literature and data search capabilities. It retrieves and queries existing data without side effects. Even though it has 'staging hooks,' these are consistent with preparing data for downstream read operations, not modifying or deleting records. The blast_submit sibling (which may execute compute) is distinct from this query tool.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'entrez-query' and description 'Compact gateway to Entrez E-utilities' indicate query/retrieval functionality. Sibling tools (efetch_and_stage, egquery, einfo, elink) confirm read-oriented operations.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Compact gateway to Entrez E-utilities with smart defaults and staging hooks. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Entrez MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Entrez MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for entrez-query: 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 Entrez MCP Server. Nothing to install.
entrez-query 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 entrez-query 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 entrez-query. 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.
entrez-query is provided by the Entrez MCP Server MCP server (leongxj123/entrez-mcp-server). 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.
Teams ship this data inside their own products. See what a licence covers →