Groups¶

Groups control which tools are exposed to your AI agent. Each group defines a subset of available tools.

How Groups Work¶

When your AI agent connects to eMCP, it connects to a group endpoint:

http://localhost:3700/v0/groups/{group-name}/mcp

The group filters the available tools so the agent only sees what you've enabled.

Default Group¶

eMCP ships with a default group called emcp-global. This is the group used when no specific group is specified.

Managing Groups via Web UI¶

Open http://localhost:3701
Toggle tools on/off to add/remove them from the active group
Changes persist immediately to the group JSON file

Group File Format¶

Groups are stored as JSON files in the groups/ directory:

{
    "name": "my-workflow",
    "description": "Tools for my specific workflow",
    "included_tools": [
        "filesystem__read_file",
        "filesystem__write_file",
        "filesystem__list_directory"
    ]
}

Tool names follow the pattern {server}__{tool}.

Managing Groups via API¶

List tools in current group¶

curl http://localhost:3701/api/current

Toggle a tool¶

curl -X POST http://localhost:3701/api/tools/toggle \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"tool": "filesystem__read_file"}'

Get all available tools¶

curl http://localhost:3701/api/tools

Creating Custom Groups¶

Create a new JSON file in groups/:

cat > groups/minimal.json << 'EOF'
{
    "name": "minimal",
    "description": "Read-only filesystem access",
    "included_tools": [
        "filesystem__read_file",
        "filesystem__list_directory"
    ]
}
EOF

Then connect your agent to:

http://localhost:3700/v0/groups/minimal/mcp