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illiahaidar/mcptrustchecker

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

89TypeScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

An offline scanner that reads the real source code of MCP servers and grades how safe they are to connect to an AI assistant.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((mcptrustchecker))
    What it does
      Reads real MCP source
      Grades A to F
      Detects toxic flows
    Tech stack
      TypeScript
      Node.js CLI
      SARIF output
    Use cases
      Pre-install scanning
      CI gating
      Installed server audit
    Audience
      Developers
      Security teams
    Design
      Offline
      Deterministic
      No LLM in scoring

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Scan every MCP server already installed for hidden prompt injection or exfiltration risk.

USE CASE 2

Check a package on npm or PyPI before installing it as an MCP server.

USE CASE 3

Gate a CI pipeline so builds fail if a server's trust score drops below a set threshold.

What is it built with?

TypeScriptNode.jsSARIFGitHub Actions

How does it compare?

illiahaidar/mcptrustcheckerfayazara/pdfstudioper-simmons/damon-ade
Stars898989
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyeasyeasymoderate
Complexity3/52/53/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Runs offline with npx and no account or API key, deep scans of npm or PyPI packages need network access to fetch the package.

MIT: free to use, modify, and share, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

MCP Trust Checker is a security scanning tool for MCP servers, which are plugins that give AI assistants like Claude access to outside tools and data. The problem it addresses is that an AI reads a tool's description directly, which makes that description a good place to hide malicious instructions, and a single tool that can both read files and make network requests is already enough to quietly leak your data. This scanner reads the actual published source code of an MCP server, not just its self reported description, and produces a letter grade from A to F along with a numeric trust score out of 100. Its central method looks at each tool in a server and asks what role it could play in an attack: does it bring in untrusted content, does it have access to sensitive data, or can it send information somewhere external. It then builds a map of how tools connect to each other and looks for the dangerous combination of all three roles being present at once, whether inside one tool or spread across several tools working together. It also decodes hidden text that attackers can smuggle inside unicode characters, turning an invisible instruction into something you can actually read and evaluate. The scanner can check tools you already have installed with zero setup, or fetch and inspect the exact published package from npm or PyPI before you install it, verifying it against the official registry hash first. It remembers the hash of a server it has already approved, so if that same version is ever silently swapped out with different code later, a rescan will flag it immediately. Everything runs offline on your own machine: there is no account, no external API calls, and no AI model involved in the scoring itself, so the same server always produces the exact same score. It ships as a command line tool you can run directly, an embeddable library other tools or marketplaces can build on, and outputs results in the SARIF format that many continuous integration systems understand, letting teams fail a build automatically when a server's score falls below a threshold they choose. The project is released under the MIT license and includes hundreds of automated tests plus a written methodology document describing exactly how scores are calculated.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Run mcptrustchecker on every MCP server I currently have installed.
Prompt 2
Scan the npm package for an MCP server before I install it, using the --online flag.
Prompt 3
Add mcptrustchecker as a GitHub Action that fails CI if a server's trust score drops.
Prompt 4
Explain what a toxic flow finding means in mcptrustchecker's output.

Frequently asked questions

What is mcptrustchecker?

An offline scanner that reads the real source code of MCP servers and grades how safe they are to connect to an AI assistant.

What language is mcptrustchecker written in?

Mainly TypeScript. The stack also includes TypeScript, Node.js, SARIF.

What license does mcptrustchecker use?

MIT: free to use, modify, and share, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is mcptrustchecker to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is mcptrustchecker for?

Mainly developer.

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