Approve and review new servers

The workflow that turns MCP from a free-for-all into something you have decided about.

Turning it on

Policy → Require approval for new MCP servers. Then choose a pending action — what happens to a server nobody has reviewed yet: allow, report, warn or block.

What counts as reviewed

Any explicit per-server rule. There is no separate approve button: setting a server's rule to allow is approving it, and setting it to block is rejecting it. A server with no rule is unreviewed, and gets the pending action.

The workflow in practice

1. MCP Inventory lists everything discovered, with a Pending approval badge on anything unreviewed.
2. For each one, decide. The server name, where it was seen, and which developers use it are usually enough; if not, ask them.
3. Set the Override selector on that row. The badge disappears.

Choosing the pending action

Report is the right starting point: nothing breaks, and you get a queue. Once your inventory is under control, move it to Block so that a genuinely new server is stopped until somebody looks at it.

Jumping straight to Block on day one blocks everything your team already depends on, because nothing has a rule yet.

What this does not do

It gates servers, not the tools inside them. If you approve a server, you approve everything it currently offers — which is why the rug-pull tripwire exists, and why per-tool rules exist for servers where you want to be more specific.