Find a business by phone number
AI agents call search_by_phone to retrieve information from Yelp Fusion MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves information from Yelp's database based on a phone number query. It has no side effects—it only reads and returns existing business data. No data is created, modified, deleted, or executed. The operation is a simple lookup similar to sibling tools like 'get_business' and 'search_businesses', which are all read-only queries against a business directory.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'search_by_phone' and description 'Find a business by phone number' indicate a lookup/retrieval operation.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Find a business by phone number. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Yelp Fusion MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Yelp Fusion MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for search_by_phone: 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 Yelp Fusion MCP Server. Nothing to install.
search_by_phone 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_by_phone 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_by_phone. 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_by_phone is provided by the Yelp Fusion MCP Server MCP server (shawndrake2/mcp-yelp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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