Policies

This page covers the controls the admin portal gives you today for deciding what employees can use. Approval, blocking and revoking are described in Approvals and Kill switches.

Set how access requests are handled

The approval mode controls how requests for MCP servers are decided across your organization.

Open Settings under Configure.

Expected: an Approval Mode section with three cards. The active one is highlighted.
Choose one:
- Trust: requests are approved automatically and IT is alerted. You can still revoke. Suits fast-moving teams.
- Catalog Only: servers already approved in your catalog are available at once, and unknown servers need IT approval. Recommended for most organizations.
- Strict: every request needs manual IT approval. For regulated industries.
Expected: the card you picked becomes active and the change applies to new requests straight away.

Start with Catalog Only. Move to Strict if your rules require a decision for every request.

Decide per server

Each server in the catalog is approved or blocked.

Open MCP Servers and select a server.
Choose Block server or Approve server.

Expected: the page shows the new Current status.

Decide per tool on a server

For servers that expose several tools, you can switch individual tools on or off and change how each is approved.

Open the server’s page from MCP Servers.

Expected: tabs for Tools, Config, Credentials, Policies and Filters. Tools is selected.
Choose Discover Tools if the table is empty.

Expected: a Discovered Tools table lists each tool with its Status, Approval and Enabled columns.
Use the Enabled switch to turn a tool on or off. Choose Edit on a row to change its approval to inherit, auto_approve, catalog_auto or manual. Inherit follows the organization’s approval mode.

Expected: the row shows the new status and approval.

Allow or deny tools by rule

The Policies tab on a server’s page sets the overall posture for that server.

Open the Policies tab.

Expected: either the current policy, or a note that no policy is configured and all tools pass through. If the tab says the server has no connection set up yet, set it up on the Credentials tab first.
Create a policy and pick its type: Allow All, Role-Based or Deny All.

Expected: the policy type shows as selected. Deny All blocks every tool on that server.
For Role-Based, choose + Add Rule. Enter a tool pattern such as create_*, a role, an action of Allow or Deny, and a priority. Save the rule.

Expected: the rule appears in the Tool Rules table. When rules overlap, the highest priority wins.

Use * as the role to apply a rule to everyone. Rule roles are separate from the member and admin account roles you pick when inviting someone.

Use Delete on a rule, or Delete Policy, to remove it.

Find unmanaged tools

Shadow AI under Security lists MCP servers and other AI client settings that the runner found on employee laptops outside Scenery. For a server, choose Bring into governance to create a catalog entry for review.

Managed Paths under Security sets how the runner treats unmanaged files in managed folders. The modes are Audit only, Warn, Quarantine and Approve required. Audit only is the safe starting point for a rollout: it records what it finds and changes nothing on the laptop.