local-workspace-mcp

Your AI assistant needs context. It does not need unrestricted access.

A read-oriented MCP server for local workspaces. Write, delete, and arbitrary-shell tools do not exist in it. Not gated or disabled: absent. Every filesystem path is checked against operator-authorized roots and a default-deny list for secrets, .env files, private keys, and .git internals. Git read tools and operator-declared named tasks provide bounded capability without giving the model a shell.

• 23 tools over stdio JSON-RPC: bounded filesystem reads/searches, read-only git (status/diff/log/show/branches), multimodal file inspection (images/archives/PDF/Office), and task_run for explicitly allowlisted commands.
• One transport: each MCP host spawns workspace-mcp serve --stdio. No inbound listener, no daemon; the server itself makes no network calls (allowlisted tasks run as your user and are not network-restricted).
• Honest scope: task_run executes real commands as your user. The allowlist bounds what can be invoked, not what invoked code can do. It is not a sandbox.

Evaluating this for team use? Start at docs/THREAT-MODEL.md and SECURITY.md.

Contents: The problem · Quick start · Usage · Tool surface · Supported hosts · Permission model · What it will not do · Security architecture · Configuration · Troubleshooting · Compatibility · Verifying the build · Release status

The problem

Hosts' built-in file tools are convenient but live in the client's permission loop, the same loop users bypass out of fatigue (--dangerously-skip-permissions, "yes to everything"). The official @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem ships read and write tools with no default secrets denylist, and has already overwritten a user's .env (upstream issue #1869). Generic filesystem MCPs give a model file access; they do not give it bounded access.

This server moves the boundary server-side: roots, deny rules, task allowlists, and audit live in an operator config that repository content cannot widen. A compromised or bypassed prompt loop cannot invoke a tool that does not exist.

Quick start

Requires Node ≥ 20, plus git for git_* tools and ripgrep (rg) for content search. Building from a clone needs pnpm (corepack enable).

npm install -g local-workspace-mcp          # puts workspace-mcp on PATH

# or from a clone:
pnpm install && pnpm build && npm link

workspace-mcp init-config     # writes ~/.config/local-workspace-mcp/config.json (mode 600)

# REQUIRED: replace the example workspace path with a real absolute path —
# any editor works; doctor fails until you do
nano ~/.config/local-workspace-mcp/config.json

workspace-mcp doctor          # must print "doctor: ALL GREEN" (use --json for CI)

The generated config ships a placeholder workspace named example — replace it with a real root or doctor will report root.example FAIL. A healthy run ends:

PASS policy.selftest — 9/9 cases correct
PASS mcp.startup — tool registration ok
doctor: ALL GREEN

Minimal working config (strict JSON — no comments or trailing commas):

{
  "version": 1,
  "workspaces": {
    "myproj": { "path": "/absolute/path/to/repo", "tasks": [] }
  },
  "tasks": {},
  "deny": []
}

Then register the server with a host. For Claude Code:

claude mcp add local-workspace --scope user -- workspace-mcp serve --stdio
claude mcp list        # confirm it registered

Other hosts use config-file entries (below — substitute the absolute path from which workspace-mcp). Then ask: "use workspace_roots, then fs_list on myproj". First useful call sequence: fs_list → git_status → git_diff on uncommitted work, where a chat client otherwise has no eyes.

Usage examples

# what the assistant can ask for
workspace_roots                        # authorized workspace ids, no host paths
fs_list   {workspace:"myproj"}
fs_read   {workspace:"myproj", path:"src/index.ts", startLine:1, maxLines:120}
fs_search_content {workspace:"myproj", query:"TODO"}        # literal; regex:true for rg syntax
git_status {workspace:"myproj"}        # branch, HEAD, uncommitted truth
git_diff  {workspace:"myproj"}         # worktree diff, bounded output
git_show  {workspace:"myproj", spec:"HEAD"}
task_list {workspace:"myproj"}
task_run  {workspace:"myproj", taskId:"typecheck"}

Denied behavior is explicit, never silent:

fs_read {workspace:"myproj", path:".env"}              → ACCESS_DENIED  (or NOT_FOUND if absent)
fs_read {workspace:"myproj", path:"../../outside-root.txt"} → OUTSIDE_ROOT
task_run {workspace:"myproj", taskId:"nuke"}           → TASK_DENIED    (valid id, not enabled)
task_run {workspace:"myproj", taskId:"rm -rf /"}       → INVALID_ARGUMENT (malformed task id)
git_show {workspace:"myproj", spec:"--exec"}           → INVALID_ARGUMENT

Denial codes are the policy working as intended, not errors to report; widening access happens only in the operator config. Task/search timeouts and output limits return timedOut:true/truncated:true in a normal result rather than an error. INTERNAL_ERROR covers spawn/tool failures and should not appear in healthy use; git_* on a non-git root returns {repo:false} gracefully.

Tool surface

All 23 tools, annotated readOnlyHint where true (hosts can auto-approve pure reads). task_run is the only tool with side effects.

Supported hosts

GUI hosts (Claude Desktop especially) spawn servers with a minimal PATH, not your shell's. If a host reports ENOENT or stays disconnected while doctor is green, the binary is not on the host's PATH. Use the absolute path (which workspace-mcp) as the command and check the host's MCP log.

Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "local-workspace": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/workspace-mcp",
      "args": ["serve", "--stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Codex CLI (~/.codex/config.toml, or codex mcp add):

[mcp_servers.local-workspace]
command = "/absolute/path/to/workspace-mcp"
args = ["serve", "--stdio"]

For ChatGPT, tunnel-client polls an outbound HTTPS path and spawns the stdio command locally; no inbound network listener opens. (tunnel-client can optionally bind a loopback-only health endpoint — see OPERATIONS.) Operator runbook: docs/OPERATIONS.md.

ChatGPT host validation (2026-10-11): after connector refresh, a live connection discovered all 23 tools and consumed a native fs_image image block. A synthetic visual canary was described from its pixels, independently of file metadata. PDF and Office tools are advertised, but their individual ChatGPT-side extraction/rendering paths have not yet been sampled. Future tool-schema updates may require another manual connector refresh; every image tool also returns metadata for hosts that do not expose visual content.

Cloud disclosure: over the ChatGPT tunnel path, tool outputs — including image bytes and extracted document text — transit OpenAI's connector infrastructure to reach the model. That is the point of the integration, but it means anything the boundary allows the model to read also leaves the machine for that host. Keep roots and deny rules tight on any workspace served to a cloud connector.

Permission model

• Roots are explicit. Filesystem tools cannot read anything outside workspaces[].path; ~, control characters, Windows drive paths, and .. traversal are rejected before any syscall, and again after realpath. (Allowlisted task_run commands are the one exception — they run as you outside the root, so allowlist only commands you would run.) Point roots at the projects you actually work on; never authorize ~/ or a parent directory that contains things the assistant should not read.
• Denied by default, including: .env*/*.env spellings (except .env[.*].{example,sample,template}), .envrc, private-key filenames, .pem/.key/.p12/.pfx/.jks/.kdbx, .ssh, .aws, .azure, .gnupg, .kube/kubeconfig, .docker, .npmrc, .netrc, .pgpass, .pypirc, .git-credentials/.gitconfig, shell histories, *.tfvars, secrets.{json,yaml,yml,toml}/.secrets/secrets.d, credentials/service-account*.json/gha-creds-*.json, and all .git internals. Representative list — the authoritative rules are DEFAULT_DENY in src/policy.ts (repository); denies are fail-closed.
• Name is not the only boundary: a file containing BEGIN … PRIVATE KEY armor under a benign name is refused in reads, git_show blobs, and search previews. The scan is heuristic defense-in-depth (encoding and size-budget limits documented in the threat model); name/policy denies are the primary boundary.
• Git is read-only and hardened: argv-only spawns, --end-of-options, strict ref validation, literal pathspecs, GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0. Inside allowlisted tasks the headline repo-config exec keys are pinned via GIT_CONFIG_* overrides (core.fsmonitor, core.sshCommand, diff.external, core.hooksPath; per-driver diff.<name>/filter.<name> hooks are a documented residual). Rename diffs and merge-conflict diff --cc blocks are policy-checked on every path they name.
• Tasks are declared, not typed: argv arrays in config, shell:false, sanitized environment, per-task timeout and output caps. Operator env cannot inject GIT_*, loader, or interpreter hooks.
• Errors are bounded: every failure is CODE: message; absolute host paths are scrubbed from server-generated tool errors, except that a task-spawn failure reports the operator-configured argv itself. task_run returns subprocess stdout/stderr with the task's configured cwd and workspace-root strings replaced by <root> — other absolute paths a command prints are not scrubbed; that output belongs to commands the operator allowlisted.

Errors: ACCESS_DENIED, OUTSIDE_ROOT, NOT_FOUND, BINARY_FILE, RESOURCE_LIMIT, TASK_DENIED, UNKNOWN_WORKSPACE, UNSUPPORTED_FORMAT, WORKSPACE_UNAVAILABLE, INVALID_ARGUMENT, INTERNAL_ERROR, plus CONFIG_ERROR at config load/startup. task_run and search timeouts return timedOut:true in the result; media deadline exhaustion is reported as TIMEOUT: on the failed item or call, so a multi-item result can come back partial rather than failed wholesale. Git-command failures surface as INVALID_ARGUMENT (git_diff/git_log/git_show map non-zero exits, including timeout kills) or INTERNAL_ERROR (git_status); a timeout on repo detection reads as repo:false, and git_branches tolerates a non-zero exit with an empty list.

What it will not do

No writes, edits, deletes, renames, or file creation. No shell. No git mutations (commit, push, clean …). No network listener. No repo-controlled configuration. Tasks execute only what the operator pre-declared, and even those run as your user with real side effects, so keep the allowlist tight and prefer read-only commands.

Security architecture

Ports-and-adapters, one implementation, one transport:

AI host ── stdio JSON-RPC ──▶ workspace-mcp serve --stdio

  config.ts   trust root: operator config (keep it outside watched roots)
  paths.ts    lexical + realpath containment, bounded error mapping
  policy.ts   default-deny rules + validated operator globs
  fsOps.ts    bounded reads/searches (ripgrep --json, structured parsing)
  git.ts      read-only git, strict refs, diff redaction, object-type gates
  tasks.ts    allowlisted argv only, process-group timeouts
  exec.ts     sanitized + git-hardened subprocess environments
  audit.ts    metadata-only JSONL; refuses symlinked targets

The full boundary analysis, the multi-round findings ledger, the adversarial regression suite, and documented residual risks live in docs/THREAT-MODEL.md. Disclosure policy in SECURITY.md.

Configuration reference

~/.config/local-workspace-mcp/config.json; refused at load if the file or its directory is group/world-writable, or the path is a symlink.

// annotated for reading — the parser is strict JSON;
// this block is documentation, not a template. Start from `init-config`
// output, or strip the // comments (the JSON itself is otherwise valid).
{
  "version": 1,
  "workspaces": {
    "myproj": {
      "path": "/abs/path", // required
      "description": "…",
      "tasks": ["typecheck"], // ids the caller may run here
    },
  },
  "tasks": {
    "typecheck": {
      "command": ["pnpm", "typecheck"], // argv only; never a command string
      "cwd": "subdir-inside-root", // optional; contained to the root
      "timeoutMs": 180000, // 1s..300s; 300s is a hard cap
      "env": { "PATH": "/opt/node/bin:${PATH}" }, // ${VAR} expands vs base env
    },
  },
  "deny": ["**/extra-secret/**"], // appended to built-in rules; evaluated
  // BEFORE the template allowlist, so an operator can re-deny
  // .env.example; malformed patterns fail config load, fail-closed
  "auditLog": "/abs/path.jsonl", // optional; defaults next to the config
  "limits": {}, // byte/line/count caps
}

Common limits keys (key: default): maxReadFileBytes: 5 MB file-size ceiling for reads, defaultReadBytes: 64 KiB per read, maxSearchResults: 200, searchDeadlineMs: 20 s, gitTimeoutMs: 15 s, maxTaskOutputBytes: 64 KiB, walkEntryCap/walkDepthCap: 50k entries / 20 deep. Full schema with bounds: src/config.ts in the repository. Callers can pass timeoutMs to task_run to shorten a task's timeout; it can never exceed the configured value or the 300 s hard cap.

Overrides: WORKSPACE_MCP_CONFIG (config file), WORKSPACE_MCP_CONFIG_DIR (config dir + audit log location), workspace-mcp serve --config <path> (CLI flag). init-config refuses to overwrite an existing config; delete the file first if you intend a reset.

Troubleshooting

workspace-mcp doctor --json gives machine-readable output for CI or wrapper scripts. Full reset: delete the config and ~/.config/local-workspace-mcp/audit.jsonl, re-run init-config. To uninstall entirely, also remove the host entry (claude mcp remove, the mcpServers/mcp_servers block, or the tunnel profile) and npm uninstall -g local-workspace-mcp (or npm unlink if linked from a clone).

Compatibility

• Node ≥ 20 (uses node:util parseArgs; packaged install verified on Node 20.11, 22.12, and 24.21).
• macOS/Linux only — declared via os in package.json and checked by doctor (platform). Windows is unsupported, not just untested: task timeouts rely on POSIX process-group kill and git/task isolation pins /dev/null.
• MCP SDK @modelcontextprotocol/sdk v1.x line (spec ≤ 2025-11-25); v2 API surface is deliberately not adopted yet (see docs/RESEARCH.md).
• ripgrep required for fs_search_content; git required for git_*.

Verifying the build

pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm test                    # 275 vitest cases incl. adversarial + red-team regressions
pnpm typecheck && pnpm build
workspace-mcp doctor         # deterministic diagnostics
scripts/inspector-smoke.sh <workspace-id>   # 17-check MCP Inspector battery
pnpm audit --prod            # dependency audit

Contributing, security, license

• CONTRIBUTING.md: RED-first tests, fail-closed rules, no new capability surface without design review.
• SECURITY.md: vulnerability reporting and scope.
• CHANGELOG.md: release notes by finding/version.
• License: MIT.

Release status

Version 0.2.0 is published on npm as local-workspace-mcp (SLSA provenance, OIDC trusted publishing) and listed on the official MCP Registry as io.github.peter4leadson/local-workspace-mcp — latest. See CHANGELOG.md for the release history. A 0.2.0 release decision record is maintained in the repository at docs/RELEASE-0.2.0-DECISION.md (internal ledger — not shipped in the tarball; the frozen 0.1.0 record is docs/RELEASE-PACKET.md).

Maintained by Peter C. Bennett.