🛡️ McpVanguard

The Interception & Verification Layer for MCP Agents

McpVanguard is an open-source security proxy and active firewall for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It acts as a real-time "Reflex System" between AI agents and their tools, protecting the host system from malicious intent, prompt injection, and data exfiltration.

Part of the Provnai Open Research Initiative — Building the Immune System for AI.

No changes to your agent. No changes to your server. Just wrap it.

⚡ Quickstart

# 1. Install
pip install mcp-vanguard

# 2. Start as a Cloud Security Gateway (SSE)
# This allows remote agents to connect over HTTP
vanguard sse --server "npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem ."

# 3. Traditional Stdio Wrap
vanguard start --server "npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem ."

# 4. Enable VEX Flight Recorder (Immutable Audit)
export VANGUARD_VEX_URL="https://api.vexprotocol.com"
export VANGUARD_VEX_KEY="your-agent-jwt"
vanguard sse --server "..." --behavioral

🧠 The Interception Layer

McpVanguard sits at the Interception Layer of the Provnai stack. It prevents the gap between Cognitive Intent (what the agent thinks) and Environmental Execution (what actually happens to your PC).

3-Layer Defense-in-Depth

Layer	Component	Defense Mechanism	Performance
L0	Cloud Gateway	SSE/Network Bridge for remote agent access	<5ms
L1	Static Rules	60+ security signatures across 5 categories	<1ms
L2	Semantic Intelligence	Local Ollama LLM intent classification	Async
L3	Behavioral Analysis	Sliding-window anomaly detection (Scraping/Enum)	Stateful

Rule Categories (Layer 1)

Filesystem: Path traversal, restricted roots (/etc/, ~/.ssh/).
Command: Pipe-to-shell, reverse shells, privilege escalation.
Network: Data exfiltration detection, tunnel host blocking.
Jailbreak: Prompt extraction, instruction-ignore patterns.
Privilege: SUID binary creation, crontab manipulation.

🛡️ VEX Protocol Integration (Flight Recorder)

McpVanguard integrates natively with the VEX Protocol. Whenever the proxy blocks a malicious action (L1/L2/L3), it instantly processes a "fire-and-forget" payload directly to the VEX API.

The VEX Server cryptographically hashes the blocked intent, runs it through the CHORA Gate, and anchors an immutable receipt (PoE) to the Bitcoin blockchain.

Enterprise auditors can mathematically prove exactly why an agent was blocked without relying entirely on local log trust.

🏗️ How It Works

                    ┌─────────────────────────────┐         ┌──────────────┐
     AI Agent       │     McpVanguard Proxy        │        │   VEX API    │
  (Claude, GPT)     │                             │──Async─▶│ (CHORA Gate) │
        │           │  ┌──────────────────────┐   │         └──────────────┘
        │──JSON-RPC▶│  │  L1: Rules Engine    │   │                │
        │           │  │  L2: Semantic Scorer  │   │                ▼
        │           │  │  L3: Behavioral Logic │   │      [Bitcoin Anchor]
        │           │  └──────────────────────┘   │
        │◀─ BLOCK ──│        or ALLOW ───────────▶│      MCP Server
        │  (Status  │                             │ (filesystem, shell...)
        │   Code)   └─────────────────────────────┘

Traffic is inspected on every message, in both directions. Blocked messages return a standard JSON-RPC error response — the server never sees the attack.

🗺️ Project Status

Phase	Goal	Status
Phase 1	Foundation (Proxy, CLI, Defensive Rules)	✅ DONE
Phase 2	Intelligence (L2 Semantic OpenAI, L3 Behavioral Redis Scaling)	✅ DONE
Phase 3	Flight Recorder (VEX & CHORA Integration)	✅ DONE
Phase 4	Distribution (v1.0.0 Stable, PyPI, WSL Verified)	✅ DONE

📚 Resources

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE.

Built by the Provnai Open Research Initiative. "Verifying the thoughts and actions of autonomous agents."

McpVanguard