AI agents call list_skills to retrieve information from Zanat without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This is a retrieval operation that queries the state of skills without altering any data. It poses minimal risk as it only exposes skill metadata that an AI agent would need to understand its available capabilities. The impact is informational only.
From the tool's definition Tool returns information about existing skills with their metadata (version and pin status). No modifications, deletions, or side effects occur. The verb 'list' and description 'List all added skills' indicate a read-only query operation.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
List all added skills with their version and pin status. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Zanat MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Zanat MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for list_skills: 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 Zanat. Nothing to install.
list_skills 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 list_skills 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 list_skills. 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.
list_skills is provided by the Zanat MCP server (@iamramo/zanat-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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