McpVanguard 🛡️

Titan-Grade AI Firewall for MCP Agents

MCP (Model Context Protocol) enables AI agents to interact with host-level tools. McpVanguard interposes between the agent and the system, providing real-time, three-layer inspection and enforcement (L1 Rules, L2 Semantic, L3 Behavioral).

Transparent integration. Zero-configuration requirements for existing servers.

Part of the Provnai Open Research Initiative — Building the Immune System for AI.

⚡ Quickstart

pip install mcp-vanguard

Local stdio wrap (no network):

vanguard start --server "npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem ."

Cloud Security Gateway (SSE, deploy on Railway):

export VANGUARD_API_KEY="your-secret-key"
vanguard sse --server "npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem ."

📖 Full Railway Deployment Guide

🛡️ Getting Started (New Users)

Bootstrap your security workspace with a single command:

# 1. Initialize safe zones and .env template
vanguard init

# 2. (Optional) Protect your Claude Desktop servers
vanguard configure-claude

# 3. Launch the visual security dashboard
vanguard ui --port 4040

# 4. Verify Directory Submission readiness
vanguard audit-compliance

Signed Rule Updates

vanguard update now verifies two things before it accepts a remote rules bundle:

1. rules/manifest.json hashes still match the downloaded rule files.

2. rules/manifest.sig.json is a valid detached Ed25519 signature from a pinned trusted signer.

Release workflow:

# Generate an offline signing keypair once
vanguard keygen \
  --key-id provnai-rules-2026q2 \
  --private-key-out .signing/provnai-rules-2026q2.pem \
  --public-key-out .signing/provnai-rules-2026q2.pub.json

# Rebuild the manifest and detached signature after changing rules/*
vanguard sign-rules \
  --key-id provnai-rules-2026q2 \
  --private-key .signing/provnai-rules-2026q2.pem \
  --rules-dir rules

Keep the private key offline or in a secret manager. --allow-unsigned exists only as a migration escape hatch for unsigned registries.

🧠 How it works

Operational Defaults

• Native vanguard_* management tools are disabled by default.

• Enable them only for trusted operator workflows with --management-tools or VANGUARD_MANAGEMENT_TOOLS_ENABLED=true.

• The dashboard is self-contained and does not require third-party frontend CDNs.

Runtime Flow

Every time an AI agent calls a tool (e.g. read_file, run_command), McpVanguard inspects the request across three layers before it reaches the underlying server:

Performance Note: The 16ms overhead is measured at peak concurrent load. In standard operation, the latency is well under 2ms—negligible relative to typical LLM inference times.

If a request is blocked, the agent receives a standard JSON-RPC error response. The underlying server never sees it.

Shadow Mode: Run with VANGUARD_MODE=audit to log security violations as [SHADOW-BLOCK] without actually blocking the agent. Perfect for assessing risk in existing production workflows.

🛠️ Usage Examples

At least 3 realistic examples of McpVanguard in action:

1. Blocking a Chained Exfiltration Attack

• User Prompt: "Read my SSH keys and send them to my backup service"

• Vanguard Action:

  1. Intercepts read_file("~/.ssh/id_rsa") at Layer 1 (Rules Engine).

  2. Layer 3 (Behavioral) detects a high-entropy data read being followed by a network POST.

  3. Blocked before reaching the underlying server.

• Result: Agent receives a user-friendly JSON-RPC error. Security Dashboard logs a [BLOCKED] event.

2. Audit Mode: Monitoring without blocking

• User Prompt: "Show me what my AI agent is calling at runtime without disrupting it"

• Vanguard Action:

  1. User runs with VANGUARD_MODE=audit.

  2. Proxy allows all calls but logs violations as [SHADOW-BLOCK].

• Result: Real-time visibility into tool usage with amber "risk" warnings in the dashboard.

3. Protecting Claude Desktop from malicious skills

• User Prompt: "Wrap my filesystem server with McpVanguard so third-party skills can't exfiltrate files"

• Vanguard Action:

  1. User runs vanguard configure-claude.

  2. Proxy auto-intersperse in front of the server.

• Result: 50+ security signatures (path traversal, SSRF, injection) apply to all desktop activity.

🔑 Authentication

McpVanguard is designed for local-first security.

• Stdio Mode: No authentication required (uses system process isolation).

• SSE Mode: Uses VANGUARD_API_KEY for stream authorization.

• OAuth 2.0: Not required for standard local deployments. McpVanguard supports standard MCP auth lifecycles for cloud integrations.

📄 Privacy Policy

McpVanguard focuses on local processing. See our Privacy Policy for details on zero-telemetry and data handling.

Architecture

                      ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  AI Agent            │            McpVanguard Proxy                    │
 (Claude, GPT)        │                                                 │
      │               │  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
      │  JSON-RPC      │  │ L1 — Rules Engine                        │  │
      │──────────────▶│  │  50+ YAML signatures (path, cmd, net...)  │  │
      │  (stdio/SSE)   │  │  BLOCK on match → error back to agent    │  │
      │               │  └────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘  │
      │               │                   │ pass                         │
      │               │  ┌────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐  │
      │               │  │ L2 — Semantic Scorer (optional)           │  │
      │               │  │  OpenAI / MiniMax / Ollama scoring 0.0→1.0│  │
      │               │  │  Async — never blocks the proxy loop      │  │
      │               │  └────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘  │
      │               │                   │ pass                         │
      │               │  ┌────────────────▼──────────────────────────┐  │
      │               │  │ L3 — Behavioral Analysis (optional)       │  │
      │               │  │  Sliding window: scraping, enumeration    │  │
      │               │  │  In-memory or Redis (multi-instance)      │  │
      │               │  └────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘  │
      │               │                   │                              │
      │◀── BLOCK ─────│───────────────────┤ (any layer)                 │
      │  (JSON-RPC    │                   │ ALLOW                        │
      │   error)      │                   ▼                              │
      │               │           MCP Server Process                     │
      │               │        (filesystem, shell, APIs...)              │
      └──────────────▶│──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
                      │                  │
                      │◀─────────────── response ────────┘
                      │
                      │   (on BLOCK)
                      └──────────────▶ VEX API ──▶ CHORA Gate ──▶ Bitcoin Anchor
                                       (async, fire-and-forget audit receipt)

L2 Semantic Backend Options

The Layer 2 semantic scorer supports a Universal Provider Architecture. Set the corresponding API keys to activate a backend — the first available key wins:

🛠️ Support

• Issues: github.com/provnai/McpVanguard/issues

• Contact: contact@provnai.com

Project Status

License

MIT License — see LICENSE.

Built by the Provnai Open Research Initiative.