contextboundary-gw

contextboundary-gw is a self-hosted MCP gateway that applies deterministic, compiled policy to tool discovery, invocation, and outbound data flow. No model is in the enforcement path.

AARM-aligned strict-determinism profile. All Core requirements (R1–R6) are implemented and CI-verified. Independent conformance review has not been undertaken.

R7 is a designed deterministic divergence: envelope-drift counting replaces semantic-distance tracking to keep a model out of the enforcement path. R8 OpenTelemetry export is implemented as a non-authoritative mirror; JSONL remains the system of record.

Quickstart

The test suite runs locally. It does not require a deployed Worker or any network access after git clone and npm ci.

git clone https://github.com/kannanokannan/contextboundary-gw.git
cd contextboundary-gw
npm ci

export TEST_AUDIT_SEAL_KEY='local-test-value'
export TEST_INTENT_ENVELOPE_BOOTSTRAP_KEY='local-owner-bootstrap-value'

npm run test:conformance
npm run test:interception
npm run test:receipts
npm run test:intent-envelope
npm run test:r4
npm run test:r6
npm run test:r8

git clone https://github.com/kannanokannan/contextboundary-gw.git
Set-Location contextboundary-gw
npm ci

$env:TEST_AUDIT_SEAL_KEY = 'local-test-value'
$env:TEST_INTENT_ENVELOPE_BOOTSTRAP_KEY = 'local-owner-bootstrap-value'

npm run test:conformance
npm run test:interception
npm run test:receipts
npm run test:intent-envelope
npm run test:r4
npm run test:r6
npm run test:r8

TEST_AUDIT_SEAL_KEY and TEST_INTENT_ENVELOPE_BOOTSTRAP_KEY are arbitrary, non-empty values used only by local tests; they are not production secrets. test:conformance and test:intent-envelope require both values. test:interception requires TEST_AUDIT_SEAL_KEY. The other four suites create their own ephemeral test material.

Suite	Coverage	Local execution
test:conformance	21 normative policy scenarios	Local Worker
test:interception	9 assertions for discovery and invocation interception	Local Worker and local spy upstream
test:receipts	10 assertions for chained receipts and public-key verification	Node-only
test:intent-envelope	28 assertions for frozen declared-intent envelopes	Local Worker
test:r4	14 assertions for MODIFY and DEFER outcomes	Local Worker and local spy upstream
test:r6	17 assertions for agent signatures, rotation, replay, and public-key verification	Local Worker
test:r8	10 assertions for OpenTelemetry export	Node-only with a local collector

Mediation boundary

• tools/call is evaluated before forwarding; only an allow decision is proxied upstream.
• tools/list is evaluated; a non-ALLOW result returns an empty list, and an allowed upstream list is filtered to permitted capabilities and envelope scope.
• All other MCP methods are proxied to UPSTREAM_MCP_URL, with boundary-* identity and signature headers stripped before forwarding.

The gateway also handles boundary/evaluate, boundary/session.start, and boundary/deferred.resume locally.

Receipts and verification

Decision receipts are hash-chained and sealed with Ed25519. Verification uses public keys only, so a third party can verify a receipt without a private key. HMAC-SHA256 is used only for the intent-envelope bootstrap proof, not for the gateway receipt seal.

Run the verifier with a receipt and public-key bundle:

node audit/verify-receipt.mjs receipt.json --public-keys public-keys.json

See audit/verify-receipt.mjs and the runnable AMS ticket-change example.

Current limitations

• This is a self-hosted reference implementation, not a hosted service; it is not deployed.
• Independent conformance review has not been undertaken.
• R6 proves that the key registered to agent X signed an action. It does not identify the human behind that agent.
• R7 deliberately differs from AARM's semantic-distance approach by using deterministic envelope-drift counting.
• Production operation requires deployment-specific Worker bindings, an agent public-key registry, and gateway signing material configured outside this repository.

Specifications and related projects

• ContextBoundary
• Boundary Policy Schema
• Boundary Conformance Scenarios
• Runtime maturity ladder