--- title: Tool Management | Keycard description: Review and select which tools a Unified Access Gateway serves before releasing them to your agents --- MCP servers expose tools to their clients. Keycard records these tools and enables you to curate which of them each gateway serves — the same MCP server proxied by two different gateways can expose a broad tool set on one and a narrow one on the other. Curation decides **which tools a gateway has**; to limit **who may call them**, use [Fine-Grained Authorization](/admin/unified-access-gateway/fine-grained-authorization/index.md). Preview Tool management is in preview, and Keycard turns it on per Zone. If the **Actions** tab and the gateway’s per-server actions panel aren’t in your Console, contact Keycard to have it turned on. ## Prerequisites - A Unified Access Gateway with upstream MCP servers attached (see [Unified Access Gateway](/admin/unified-access-gateway/index.md)) - Manager access to the Zone (see [Roles & Permissions](/admin/roles-and-permissions/index.md)) ## Reviewing available MCP tools Open **Resources**, select an MCP server, and open the **Actions** tab. The table lists every tool Keycard has recorded for that server, with a **Source** column saying where each one came from: | Source | Meaning | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Catalog** | Seeded from the package description when the server was installed from the [Catalog](/admin/catalog/index.md) | | **User** | Added by hand on this tab | ![The Actions tab of an MCP server Resource, listing tool names, descriptions, and their source](/images/light/uag/resource-actions-tab.png) ![The Actions tab of an MCP server Resource, listing tool names, descriptions, and their source](/images/dark/uag/resource-actions-tab.png) The list is a record, not a live view Keycard doesn’t poll your MCP servers. A Resource’s actions are what the install seeded plus whatever you’ve added since, so a tool the vendor shipped after you installed the server won’t appear until somebody adds it. ### Adding new or unlisted MCP tools Servers you build in-house have no Catalog package to seed from, so their tool list starts empty. Click **Add tool** and enter the tool’s **Name**, which is the full policy action name rather than the bare MCP tool name: prepend `mcp::tools/call::` to the name the server publishes. ![The Add tool dialog, with the fully qualified policy action name entered in the Name field](/images/light/uag/add-tool-dialog.png) ![The Add tool dialog, with the fully qualified policy action name entered in the Name field](/images/dark/uag/add-tool-dialog.png) The name must be unique within the Resource. Each row’s menu also offers **Edit tool** and **Remove tool**, so you can correct a hand-built list. Because the name you enter is the exact string your Policies match on, you can write Policy against a tool whether or not any gateway serves it. Coming soon Guided tool discovery and refresh from upstream MCP servers is currently in development and coming soon. ## Choosing the tools a gateway serves The Unified Access Gateway can operate in two modes. The **All actions** mode acts as an unfiltered proxy: the gateway continues to serve all available actions from the upstreams. Use this mode if you want the latest tools to become available as soon as the upstreams release them. The **Selected actions** mode acts as a configuration gate: new tools must be explicitly enabled when the upstream releases them. Use this mode when you want to review new tools before making them visible to consumers. 1. **Open the gateway’s actions panel** In Keycard Console, open **Applications**, select the gateway, then open the **MCP Servers** tab. Click an attached server to open its actions panel. 2. **Read the current mode** The **Allow** field shows the server’s current mode on this gateway. Every server starts in **All actions** when you attach it. The panel says *New actions are enabled automatically*, and the count reads *All*, followed by the number of tools. ![A gateway's actions panel for an attached MCP server, set to allow all actions](/images/light/uag/gateway-actions-all.png) ![A gateway's actions panel for an attached MCP server, set to allow all actions](/images/dark/uag/gateway-actions-all.png) 3. **Turn off the tools this gateway shouldn’t serve** Find a tool with the search box and turn its switch off. Turning off the first tool moves the server to **Selected actions**, where the panel says *Until you enable them, new actions stay disabled* and the count becomes a ratio, such as *64 of 66 enabled*. ![A gateway's actions panel set to selected actions, with one tool switched off](/images/light/uag/gateway-actions-selected.png) ![A gateway's actions panel set to selected actions, with one tool switched off](/images/dark/uag/gateway-actions-selected.png) Expand a row to see the tool’s description and its full policy action name, with a button to copy the name for a Cedar Policy. 4. **Cut the list down to a few tools** Where a gateway should serve only a handful of tools, click **Disable all**, then turn on the few you want. The button reads **Enable all** whenever anything is off. A server in **Selected actions** with nothing enabled serves no tools. [Troubleshooting](#troubleshooting) covers what a client sees in that case. 5. **Return to serving everything** Click **All actions** to stop curating. The gateway goes back to serving whatever the upstream returns, including tools added later, and Keycard discards your per-tool selections for that server. Curation shapes the gateway, not the upstream A client that holds a credential for the upstream MCP server and connects to it directly sees whatever the upstream gives it, because curation constrains the gateway path only. Where that matters, control it by not issuing the credential. Curation also applies only to the unified gateway endpoint; a single-server proxy endpoint serves the upstream’s full tool set. ## Verify Connect to the gateway as one of its users and list its tools: a tool you turned off is absent. Call it by name anyway and the client reports `unknown tool: __`, with no matching request reaching the upstream. Changes take effect on the next request through the gateway — there is nothing to deploy and no need for users to sign in again. Then check **Console → Audit Log** for the `applications:disable_action` event recording who turned it off and when. See [Activity events](/reference/activity-events/index.md) for the other events curation emits. ## Troubleshooting If a tool is missing from a user’s tool list, check whether the server is in **Selected actions** on that gateway and whether the tool is turned on — a tool the upstream released after the server moved to **Selected actions** arrives switched off. The client error doesn’t distinguish a disabled tool from one that never existed, but activity events record the real reason: `tool is outside the curated surface of `. When curation isn’t the cause, the user may not be permitted to list that upstream; see [Fine-Grained Authorization](/admin/unified-access-gateway/fine-grained-authorization/index.md). When a server is in **Selected actions** with nothing enabled, the gateway refuses every call to it, and the error names Policy rather than curation: a call returns `access denied by policy for `, and if that server is the gateway’s only upstream, `tools/list` returns `no unified upstreams are accessible with the presented grant`. Check that the panel doesn’t read *0 of N enabled* before you start debugging Policy. Click **Enable all** to restore the full set, or **All actions** to stop curating. A client can still list a tool you turned off, because the gateway doesn’t push a tool-list change notification and the client shows the list it last fetched. Calling the tool fails regardless; have the user reconnect to refresh the list. ## Next steps - Gate the remaining tools per User or Group with [Fine-Grained Authorization](/admin/unified-access-gateway/fine-grained-authorization/index.md). - Review who called what in the [audit log](/admin/audit-log-and-sessions/index.md).