MCP security best practices
MCP gives an AI agent real power over your data. The etg24 platform is built for exactly this moment — the guardrails are the same ones the REST API gives you. Use them deliberately.
1. Start read-only
Agents that browse, search and report should get a read-only key. A read-only key can run every query and no command — it cannot change data by construction, no matter what the model asks for. Only hand out write access when the agent’s job actually requires it. See Permission scopes.
2. One key per agent
Do not share keys between agents. Each agent gets its own key, so it is its own actor in the change log — and so you can disable exactly the one that misbehaves. See Per-agent attribution.
3. Review destructive commands
Before an agent deletes or overwrites anything, check what it is about to call. Command tools are explicitly marked in the tool reference. When you are unsure, restrict the agent to queries, or remove destructive scopes from its key — destructive actions are gated separately from ordinary writes.
4. You can always see what happened
Every MCP action is a command or query executed by an attributable agent. The change log records what changed, which agent did it, and when. Nothing an agent does is invisible.
5. Mistakes are reversible
If an agent gets it wrong: find the change in the log, disable the key, and roll back. Deletes are soft deletes almost everywhere, so agent mistakes are undone, not excavated.
6. Treat prompt content as untrusted input
Anything that reaches an agent — emails, form submissions, documents — is input. The API sanitizes HTML content and validates payloads, but design your automations as if prompts could contain hostile instructions: keep destructive scopes away from agents that process external input.
The checklist
- Read-only key unless writes are truly needed.
- One key per agent, named after its purpose.
- No destructive scopes on agents that process external input.
- Review what a new agent is about to call before letting it run unattended.
- Know the rollback path: change log → disable key → restore.