List Custom Rules
list_rulesRetrieve an inventory of deployed custom evaluation rules. Use when you need to check live rules before scoring or deploying to avoid duplicates.
Instructions
Enumerate deployed custom evaluation rules from the local rule store.
Sibling tools — deploy_rule adds custom rules, delete_rule removes them, evaluate_output runs them against agent output. log_trace / get_traces / delete_trace handle the trace lifecycle separately. list_rules is the READ path for the custom-rule store; nothing else exposes the inventory.
Behavior. Pure read of ~/.iris/custom-rules.json (in-memory cached; no disk read per call after server boot). No mutation, no external network. Tenant-scoped in Cloud tier; OSS returns all rules for the single local tenant. Rate-limited to 20 req/min on HTTP MCP, unlimited on stdio. Returns in <5ms.
Output shape. Returns JSON: { "rules": [{ "id": "rule-XXXX", "name", "description?", "evalType", "severity", "definition": { type, config, weight? }, "enabled": boolean, "deployedAt": ISO timestamp, "sourceMomentId?": string }], "total": number, "enabled_count": number }. Empty array + total=0 when no rules deployed.
Use when you need to know what custom rules are currently live (before calling evaluate_output, before deploying a similar rule to avoid duplicates, or when building a dashboard view). Filter with eval_type to scope to a specific category, or enabled_only: true to exclude disabled rules. Use get_traces to see trace data; use evaluate_output to run scoring; use list_rules only when you need the RULE INVENTORY.
Don't use to count traces or evals (that's get_traces). Don't use to inspect built-in (non-custom) rules — those ship with the iris binary and are listed in docs/api-reference.md, not in the rule store. Don't use to deploy a rule (use deploy_rule); don't use to remove one (use delete_rule).
Parameters. eval_type filter is exact-match against each rule's evalType field (no wildcards). enabled_only excludes rules that are deployed-but-disabled (toggled via the dashboard's rule-list affordance — there's no MCP toggle tool in v0.4). Both filters are AND-combined when both are set. Both are optional; with no filter, all rules return. Defaults: eval_type=undefined (no filter), enabled_only=false (returns all rules including disabled).
Error modes. Returns empty list if the rule store file doesn't exist (first run). Returns 429 if HTTP rate limit exceeded. Never throws on valid input.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| eval_type | No | Filter to rules of a specific eval category | |
| enabled_only | No | Return only enabled rules (excludes disabled ones) |