search_by_subject
AI agents call search_by_subject to retrieve information from Pinecone Economic Books without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool queries a vector database for economic content filtered by subject. Search operations are inherently read-only with no side effects—they retrieve existing data without creating, modifying, deleting, or executing external operations.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'search_by_subject' and server context indicate data retrieval from a Pinecone vector database of economic books. Sibling tools like 'semantic_search', 'search_by_author', and 'search_by_book' are all read-only search operations.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
search_by_subject. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Pinecone Economic Books MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Pinecone Economic Books MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for search_by_subject: 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 Pinecone Economic Books. Nothing to install.
search_by_subject 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_subject 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_subject. 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_subject is provided by the Pinecone Economic Books MCP server (srulyrosenblat/econ_mcp). 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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