Search across all past session conversations. Finds what was discussed, decided, or debugged in previous sessions. Full-text search with porter stemming — e.g.,
AI agents call search_sessions to retrieve information from Trace without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This is a query/search operation that retrieves historical session data without side effects. It does not create, modify, delete, or execute anything — it only surfaces existing conversation records. The low severity reflects minimal blast radius: an AI agent misusing this tool could at worst read past decisions or debug context, but cannot alter state or trigger external operations.
From the tool's definition Tool description explicitly states it "search[es] across all past session conversations" using "full-text search"; no modification, deletion, or execution capabilities mentioned. The verb "search" and "finds" indicate retrieval only.
Documented attack patterns abuse exactly the kind of access search_sessions gives an agent:
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway — it sits between your AI agents and Trace, and nothing reaches the server without passing your rules. This is the rule we recommend for search_sessions:
{
"version": "1",
"default": "deny",
"tools": {
"search_sessions": {}
}
}search_sessions is read-only, so it stays allowed — but everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
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Search across all past session conversations. Finds what was discussed, decided, or debugged in previous sessions. Full-text search with porter stemming — e.g.,. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Trace MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Trace MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for search_sessions: 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 Trace. Nothing to install.
search_sessions 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 search_sessions 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 search_sessions. 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.
search_sessions is provided by the Trace MCP server (nikolai-vysotskyi/trace-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Deterministic rules across all 178 Trace tools. Per-identity grants. Full audit log. Live in minutes. Nothing to install.
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178 Trace tools catalogued and risk-classified — across an index of 42,500+ MCP servers.