MCP Roots

The roots a client has granted its servers — the closest thing MCP has to a permission boundary, and invisible in most clients. A root covering a whole home directory is drawn as a warning rather than as another grey row.

src/components/ui/mcp-roots.tsx

About

From the component's own source, where it was written.

The roots a client has granted its MCP servers.

Roots are how an MCP client says "you may look here and nowhere else", and they are the closest thing the protocol has to a permission boundary. They are also invisible in most clients, which means nobody notices when one is a great deal wider than intended.

So this leans on making a wide grant *look* wide. A root at /, ~ or a home directory covers everything a person owns, and it is rendered as a warning rather than as another grey row — the same reasoning as SandboxPolicy, applied to the protocol's own mechanism.

Per-server scoping is shown when present. A root granted to every server is a different fact from one granted to a single trusted server, and a flat list of paths cannot tell them apart.

Install

npx astralyx-ui add mcp-roots

Usage

import { McpRoots } from '@/components/ui/mcp-roots'

<McpRoots roots={roots} onAdd={add} onRemove={remove} />

Composer

Change the props and the source below follows.

Roots

astralyx
file:///Users/ada/work/astralyx
filesystem, git
Scratch
file:///tmp/agent-scratch
all servers
Home
file:///Users/ada
filesystem
Covers everything you own

Props

editable

tsx

<McpRoots
  roots={roots}
  onAdd={add}
  onRemove={remove}
/>

Examples

One root wider than intended

tsx

<McpRoots roots={roots} onRemove={remove} />

API

Generated from the source, so it cannot fall behind the code. One table per exported component, then hooks, functions and types.

`McpRoots`

The roots a client has granted its MCP servers.

Extends Omit<ComponentProps<'div'>, 'children'>.

Prop	Type	Default	Description
roots	McpRoot[]	required	Rendered as “servers can see nothing”, rather than as an empty box that could mean either thing.
onAdd	() => void	—	—
onRemove	(uri: string) => void	—	—
addLabel	string	'Add a root'	—
removeLabel	string	'Remove'	—
allServersLabel	string	'all servers'	—
readOnlyLabel	string	'read-only'	—
broadLabel	string	'Covers everything you own'	—
emptyLabel	string	'No roots granted — servers can see nothing on this machine.'	—
label	string	'Roots'	—

Functions

Function	Signature	Description
isBroadRoot	(uri: string) => boolean	—

Types

`McpRoot`

Field	Type	Description
uri	string	A `file://` URI, as the protocol specifies.
name?	string	—
servers?	string[]	Server ids this root is exposed to. Empty or absent means all of them.
readOnly?	boolean	Read-only grant.

Behaviour

Topic	Detail	Description
broad detection	isBroadRoot	`/`, a bare `~`, and `/Users/<name>` or `/home/<name>` cover everything a person owns. Exported so a save handler can check before granting.
scoping	shown per root	A root granted to every server is a different fact from one granted to a single trusted server, and a flat path list cannot tell them apart.