Capture content from a specific pane
AI agents call capture-pane to retrieve information from Ryan's Tmux MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool reads pane contents without side effects. While it operates on tmux sessions (a system tool), capturing output is a read operation analogous to viewing logs or fetching terminal state. The data extracted does not modify or execute anything, and a user agent could reasonably need this for monitoring or debugging purposes.
From the tool's definition Tool is named 'capture-pane' and described as 'Capture content from a specific pane' — the verb 'capture' in this context means retrieve or extract existing content without modification.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Capture content from a specific pane. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Ryan's Tmux MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Ryan's Tmux MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for capture-pane: 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 Ryan's Tmux MCP Server. Nothing to install.
capture-pane 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 capture-pane 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 capture-pane. 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.
capture-pane is provided by the Ryan's Tmux MCP Server MCP server (ryancnelson/ryan-tmux-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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