federation_bbs_watch
agentbbs — Poll recent envelopes from a BBS room (ADR-164 Phase 1). Returns envelopes newer than the optional sinceEnvelopeId, up to limit. Use when a pod agent needs to see incoming human overrides, new tasks, or peer events posted to its room. Polling memory_search for the room namespace is wro...
This record as markdown: /tools/ruflo/federation-bbs-watch.md
What federation_bbs_watch does on Ruflo
AI agents call federation_bbs_watch to retrieve information from Ruflo without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
Why federation_bbs_watch is rated Low
This tool retrieves and queries data from a bulletin board system (BBS) room without modifying, deleting, or executing arbitrary operations. It is purely informational, allowing agents to check for incoming messages, tasks, and peer events. The low severity reflects minimal risk even if misused—excessive polling causes inefficiency but not data loss or system compromise.
From the tool's definition Tool polls and returns envelopes from a BBS room; explicitly stated as 'Returns envelopes newer than the optional sinceEnvelopeId, up to limit' and 'reads the canonical envelope log directly'.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs federation_bbs_watch safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Ruflo, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For federation_bbs_watch, this is the rule to start with:
federation_bbs_watch is read-only, so it stays allowed. Everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
The button opens the PolicyLayer dashboard: create your workspace, connect Ruflo, apply this rule, and every federation_bbs_watch call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about federation_bbs_watch
agentbbs — Poll recent envelopes from a BBS room (ADR-164 Phase 1). Returns envelopes newer than the optional sinceEnvelopeId, up to limit. Use when a pod agent needs to see incoming human overrides, new tasks, or peer events posted to its room. Polling memory_search for the room namespace is wrong because it loses the monotonic seq ordering and re-runs PII gating per query; this tool reads the canonical envelope log directly. Phase 1 is polling — Phase 4 layers streaming on the same surface. Optional dep — degrades to {degraded:true} when missing. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Ruflo MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Ruflo MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for federation_bbs_watch: 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 Ruflo. Nothing to install.
federation_bbs_watch 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 federation_bbs_watch 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 federation_bbs_watch. 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.
federation_bbs_watch is provided by the Ruflo MCP server (ruvnet/ruflo). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
More on Ruflo, and thousands of servers like it.
This server
Across the catalogue