About MCP governance

AI agents get their abilities from tool servers, which are connections to applications such as Slack or Linear that use the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Each tool server offers a set of tools, such as "search documents", "send email", or "delete record". MCP governance lets you control which tool servers and tools your AI agents can use.

With MCP governance, you can:

  • See every tool server your organization uses and every tool it offers, in one place.
  • Classify each tool, and choose which tools each AI agent can use.
  • Set rules for each AI agent, to define which tools it can use and when.
  • Enforce those rules at runtime, so that tool requests that aren't allowed are blocked.

How MCP governance works

Step Where What happens
1. Register Registry and Collibra CLI Add the tool servers that your AI agents use, and discover their tools with the CLI.
2. Classify AI Agent Tool asset page Add metadata to each tool, for example its access type (read or write) and surface (internal or external).
3. Define rules MCP governance tab of an AI Agent asset page Create Allow and Deny rules that define which tools an AI agent can use.
4. Enforce Agent Gateway Every tool request is checked against your rules, and requests that aren't allowed are blocked.

Tool servers and tools

The tool server registry is a single inventory of all tool servers and the tools they offer. You can register a tool server, discover its tools with the Collibra CLI, and classify each tool by adding metadata to it, for example:

  • Access type: Whether the tool only reads information, or can write (change or delete) it.
  • Surface: Whether the tool stays internal to your systems, or reaches external services such as the public internet.

To turn a tool off for all AI agents, set the Enabled attribute of its AI Agent Tool asset to False.

Registered MCP servers appear in the registry, where the MCP servers tile shows how many you have. Click the tile to filter the asset table to your MCP servers, and click it again to remove the filter.

For steps, go to Register an MCP server and Classify MCP tools.

The MCP governance tab of an AI agent

The MCP governance tab on an AI Agent asset page is where you govern the MCP tools of that AI agent. It has two views:

Rules for AI agents

The rules for an AI agent define which tools it can use. They contain:

  • Deny rules take precedence: If a Deny rule and an Allow rule both match a tool request, the request is blocked.
  • No match means blocked: If no rule matches a tool request, the request is blocked.
  • Rules: Allow or Deny rules that match the metadata of a tool, such as its access type or surface, or a specific tool. For example, "Deny all tools that write data".

You can link the rules to an asset in the registry, so they sit next to the rest of that asset's governance documentation.

Note For AI agents that are built with the SDK, governance is done with Guardian Agents.

Enforcement

The Agent Gateway sits between AI agents and their tool servers. It checks every tool request against the rules, and blocks anything that isn't allowed. Rules must be compiled and published before the Agent Gateway uses them.

Permissions

You need a resource role with the following resource permissions. No global permission is required.

  • Register an MCP server: Asset > Add on the domain where you register it.
  • Add, edit, or delete the metadata of a tool: Asset > Update on the AI Agent Tool asset.
  • Create, edit, delete, enable, or disable rules: Asset > Update on the AI Agent asset.

Without these resource permissions, you can still see the MCP governance tab, but the actions to change it are hidden. You only see the tools that you have permission to view. The tab, and the MCP servers in the registry, only appear when MCP governance is enabled in the settings.

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