Check the status of all configured governance gates for this workspace.
AI agents call check_gates to retrieve information from Governance Mcp without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This is a read-only operation that queries the current state of governance gates. It retrieves information for compliance and visibility purposes without side effects, state changes, or external operations. The verb 'check' combined with 'status' clearly indicates inspection/retrieval rather than creation, modification, execution, or deletion.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'check_gates' and description 'Check the status of all configured governance gates for this workspace' indicate a query/inspection operation that retrieves governance gate status without modifying or executing anything.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Check the status of all configured governance gates for this workspace. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Governance Mcp MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Governance MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for check_gates: 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 Governance Mcp. Nothing to install.
check_gates 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 check_gates 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 check_gates. 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.
check_gates is provided by the Governance MCP server (@mima-ai/governance-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
check_gates is one line of Governance's registry record.
The record carries the whole server: verified identity, auth posture, risk grade, every tool classified, recommended policy — re-checked continuously.
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