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Ability to restrict MCP tool use to subagent only #2277
Description
Currently builtin tools (edit, bash, webfetch) can be disabled at the top-level using permissions. It would be useful to have the ability to do the same with MCP tools as well.
The primary use case is to disable large/complex MCP servers (Github MCP for example) from the top-level agent and restrict their use to a subagent.
Side note: permissions and tools seem to have some overlap, specifically for subagents? ("deny" in permissions would be the same as setting the "tools" entry to false, right?)
Activity
github-actions commentedon Aug 27, 2025
This issue might be related to existing issues. Please check:
Feel free to ignore if none of these address your specific case of restricting MCP tools to subagent-only use.
rekram1-node commentedon Aug 27, 2025
@garrett-hopper
You can do this already?
At top level config set
then for any agent definition set:
rekram1-node commentedon Aug 27, 2025
yes this is true and that's why they need to get merged soon
garrett-hopper commentedon Aug 27, 2025
🤦 Not sure how I missed the ability to use tools at top level; thought it was subagent specific. Sorry for the noise.
(Got it in my head that permissions was the only option and should somehow support MCP I think.)