Tenable Identity Exposure MCP Server

An MCP server exposing the Tenable Identity Exposure (TIE, formerly Tenable.ad) REST API as tools for LLM clients. Built on FastMCP from the official mcp SDK.

Verified end-to-end against a live TIE SaaS instance (v3.120.1).

⚠️ Disclaimer: This is not an officially supported Tenable project. It was built with assistance from Claude — treat its output as a starting point and validate responses against the Tenable console before acting on them.

Tools

Response envelope

List-returning tools wrap their output in a consistent envelope so an empty result is never ambiguous:

{ "count": 0, "page": 1, "perPage": 25, "hasMore": false,
  "appliedFilters": { "...": "..." }, "warnings": ["..."], "results": [] }

Always check warnings — an unrecognized filter, a defaulted profile, or a substring-vs-exact match is reported there rather than silently dropped.

Finding AD objects & filter grammar

• There is no GET /api/ad-objects?search= — the API rejects it. Resolve accounts with tie_find_ad_object (backed by the event stream, TIE's only server-side object-attribute search), then use tie_get_ad_object for full attributes.

• The filter expression used by tie_deviances and tie_search_events is a predicate map: {"attributeName": "substring"} (case-insensitive contains), multiple keys ANDed, combined with {"AND":[…]} / {"OR":[…]}. {} matches all. The {"attribute","operator","value"} form silently matches nothing — the tools now warn when they see it.

Time windows, profiles, and token budget

• Time-aware tools (tie_recent_activity, tie_deviances, tie_attacks_aggregate) accept a relative hours=N window or explicit date_start/date_end. All timestamps are UTC.

• IoE/IoA data is profile-scoped. The API does not expose which profile your console has selected, so pass profile_id explicitly — use tie_profiles to list them. If omitted, tools default to profile 1 and add a warning to warnings.

• By default, deviance/object/attack results are slimmed (descriptions rendered, oversized values dropped, attack vector.template omitted). Pass verbose=true (or include_template=true for attacks) for the full raw payload.

Configuration

Set via environment variables (or --tie-url / --tie-api-key flags):

Auth uses the X-API-Key header.

Install & run

python -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

cp .env.example .env   # fill in TIE_URL and TIE_API_KEY

# stdio (Claude Desktop / Claude Code)
set -a; . ./.env; set +a
tenable-tie-mcp

# or network transports
tenable-tie-mcp --transport sse --port 8000
tenable-tie-mcp --transport http --port 8000

Running with uv / uvx (alternative to a manual venv)

uv can manage the environment for you. uv is the full tool; uvx (alias for uv tool run) runs a package in a throwaway env, like npx. Both need uv installed (brew install uv).

# uv run: resolves deps from pyproject.toml into a managed .venv, then runs
uv run tenable-tie-mcp

# uvx: run ephemerally from the project path, nothing persisted
uvx --from . tenable-tie-mcp

Claude Desktop / Claude Code config

Use the full path to the executable. Claude Desktop does not launch from your shell, so it does not inherit your PATH — a bare tenable-tie-mcp will fail with "command not found" unless the tool is on the system PATH (e.g. a pipx install).

For a venv install, point at the venv's launcher:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tenable-tie": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/tenable-ie-mcp/.venv/bin/tenable-tie-mcp",
      "env": {
        "TIE_URL": "https://your-host.tenable.ad",
        "TIE_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Find the exact path with echo "$PWD/.venv/bin/tenable-tie-mcp" from the project root. See claude_desktop_config.sample.json for a complete example.

If you installed globally with pipx install . (or uv tool install), the bare "command": "tenable-tie-mcp" works because it lands on the system PATH.

With uv (alternative)

Point command at the full path of uv (which uv, e.g. /opt/homebrew/bin/uv) and let it manage the environment:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tenable-tie": {
      "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/uv",
      "args": ["run", "--directory", "/absolute/path/to/tenable-ie-mcp", "tenable-tie-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "TIE_URL": "https://your-host.tenable.ad",
        "TIE_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Docker

docker compose up --build   # reads TIE_URL / TIE_API_KEY from environment

Example prompts

• "Show me IoE and IoA activity in the last 12 hours." → tie_recent_activity

• "Find the account SECURITYPEN and show its exposures and privileges." → tie_account_report

• "Resolve the user administrator to its object id and DN." → tie_find_ad_object

• "Which security profiles exist?" → tie_profiles

• "List the monitored directories and their security scores."

• "Show the latest IoA attacks against directory 8." → tie_attacks

• "Which source hosts and accounts are behind attacks on directory 8?" → tie_attacks_aggregate

• "What IoE deviances appeared for checker 15 in the last day?" → tie_deviances

• "Show unread alerts for profile 2."

Notes

• Every list tool returns the {count, hasMore, appliedFilters, warnings, results} envelope — read warnings (defaulted profile, unrecognized filter, truncation).

• profile_id defaults to 1 when omitted, and the tool warns; pass it (or profile_name where supported) to target your console's active profile.

• AD-object lookup is via tie_find_ad_object / tie_get_ad_object; the flat GET /api/ad-objects/{id} and ?search= routes do not work and are not used.

• Attacks must be scoped: resource_type ∈ infrastructure|directory|hostname|ip and resource_value is the id or name/ip. search matches source host/IP only — use actor to filter by the acting account in the attack vector.

• Non-JSON responses are returned as {"content_type": ..., "text": ...} rather than crashing.

• Scoring and prioritization: TIE checkers carry a remediationCost (easy / medium / hard) but no native asset-level severity score. If your workflow requires AES (Asset Exposure Score) or ACR (Asset Criticality Rating) — for example, to rank affected identities by business risk — connect your environment to Tenable One. Tenable One aggregates data across TIE, Tenable Vulnerability Management, and other sources to produce unified AES/ACR scores that can be surfaced here via the API.