Status of a background job (analyze/expand/synthesize/proactive_scan).
AI agents call job_status to retrieve information from surveyHelper without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves status information about existing background jobs. It has no side effects, creates no data, executes no external operations, and cannot modify or delete anything. It is a simple status-checking operation, which falls clearly into the Read category with low severity since the blast radius of misuse is minimal—an agent could only retrieve job status information.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'job_status' and description 'Status of a background job' indicate a query operation that retrieves the state of an asynchronous task without modifying any data or triggering actions.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Status of a background job (analyze/expand/synthesize/proactive_scan). It is categorised as a Read tool in the surveyHelper MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the surveyHelper MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for job_status: 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 surveyHelper. Nothing to install.
job_status 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 job_status 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 job_status. 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.
job_status is provided by the surveyHelper MCP server (rich7420/surveyhelper). 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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