Skills/PyPI/mcp-web-engine

mcp-web-engine@1.2.1

VERIFIED· startup only

Publisher claims: "Self-hostable MCP search, public-page fetch and Markdown extraction" Observed in sandbox: no network, touches nothing outside the project, writes no memory.

Registry PyPI (MCP server)Publisher arbolencio · publishing for 86 daysInstalls 35Last detonated 4d ago
$claude mcp add mcp-web-engine -- uvx mcp-web-engine
WatchReport an issue

Coverage

Startup only; authenticated tool behavior not tested.
Tested
server startup over stdio (initialize sent) · every file read, file written and host contacted by what ran
Not tested
the tool list (the server exited before answering) · what the tools do when called with real credentials

What this means for the label: Verified here covers what ran. The server's tools were not exercised with a real credential, so nothing about their behavior is asserted; the credential summary below says what to do with that.

Before you give it your token

It will ask for
no credential variables read in the code
Where it talks to
no vendor host named in the codeAlso astral.sh, duckduckgo.com — not the publisher's domain; check what for before connecting.
What the honeypot saw
no credential files read · no network
What we could not test
the tool list (the server exited before answering) · what the tools do when called with real credentials

Connect it under the guard. Startup only; authenticated tool behavior not tested. The code names no credential variable; the guard pins the network to what the honeypot saw and logs every call.

$vet-skills run --net declared -- uvx mcp-web-engine

Never paste a credential into a chat, a ticket or a report, including ours. How the guard holds it.

Is [email protected] safe to install?

KillerSkills ran it in the KillerSkills honeypot sandbox (2 scenarios; startup only; authenticated tool behavior not tested) on 2026-11-10 and scored it 85/100 (Verified). In what ran, nothing we could detect went wrong: no undeclared network egress, no credential reads, no persistent instruction writes. What it does with a real credential was not observed; the static findings and the publisher carry the rest of the score. Summary: no network, touches nothing outside the project, writes no memory.

Behavior trace

Honeypot run · 20 s · 2 scenarios · 0 deviations
t+CategoryObserved action
0.0sprocessno install scripts in bundle
20sprocessexec /app/apps/web/node_modules/.bin/uv
20sprocessexec /root/.cache/node/corepack/v1/pnpm/10.28.0/dist/node-gyp-bin/uv
20sprocessexec /app/node_modules/.bin/uv
20sprocessexec /pnpm/uv
20sprocessexec /usr/local/sbin/uv
20sprocessexec /usr/local/bin/uv
20sprocessexec /usr/sbin/uv
20sprocessexec /usr/bin/uv
20sprocessexec /sbin/uv
20sprocessexec /bin/uv
20sclaimedstartup only: exited (0) before answering · (node:1592) [UNDICI-EHPA] Warning: EnvHttpProxyAgent is experimental, expect them to change at any time. (Use `node --trace-warnings ...` to show where the warning was created) [mcp-web-engine] Cannot launch uv: spawn uv EACCES. Install uv: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/
20sprocessscript backend runs setup only
20sprocessno install scripts to re-run

Static findings

MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/test_packaging.py:64 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run(["npm", "pack", "--dry-run", "--json", "--ignore-scripts"], cwd=ROOT, text=True, capture_output=True, check=True)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/test_gateway_review.py:26 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run([sys.executable, '-m', 'mcp_web_engine.main', '--typo'], input='', capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=10)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
File permission modification commandDockerfile:12 · File permission modification command — agent changes file ownership/permissionsRUN mkdir -p /home/appuser/.local/state/mcp-web-engine && chown -R appuser:appgroup /home/appuser/.localFix: Request the narrowest permission that works; replace wildcards with the exact paths or hosts.
AST05
MEDIUM
Process kill commandtests/test_distribution_review.py:69 · Process kill command — agent can terminate processeschild.kill = (signal) => { child.forwarded = signal; return true; };Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments; do not interpolate untrusted strings into a shell.
AST05
MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/artifact_smoke.py:26 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system filesPath(cwd, ".env").write_text("PORT=not-a-number\n")Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/handshake_stdio_test.py:21 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run(command, input=''.join(json.dumps(m) + '\n' for m in MESSAGES), capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=60, env=env)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/test_gateway_review.py:20 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run([sys.executable, '-m', 'mcp_web_engine.main', flag], input='', capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=10)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/test_distribution_review.py:88 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run(["node", "-e", harness, str(ROOT / "bin/cli.js"), json.dumps({"code": code, "signal": signal, "error": error})], capture_output=True, text=True, check=True)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/test_packaging.py:38 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system filesassert {".env", ".env.*", "**/__pycache__", ".git", ".venv", "beta_keys.json", "*.pem", "*.key"} <= set(ignore)Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/artifact_smoke.py:27 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run(command, input="".join(json.dumps(m) + "\n" for m in messages), text=True, capture_output=True, timeout=timeout, cwd=cwd, env=env)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/test_fetch_review.py:40 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files<a href="file:///etc/passwd">File</a><a href="/safe">Safe</a>Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/test_distribution_review.py:13 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system filescontent = (ROOT / ".env.example").read_text()Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/test_config_hardening.py:41 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run([sys.executable, '-m', 'mcp_web_engine.main', '--serve'], cwd=tmp_path, env=env, capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=10)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/test_config_hardening.py:13 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files(tmp_path / '.env').write_text('ALLOW_DDG_FALLBACK=true\nAPI_KEY=unexpected-key\n')Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Python subprocess execution detectedtests/test_config_hardening.py:51 · Python subprocess execution detectedresult = subprocess.run([sys.executable, '-c', 'from mcp_web_engine.config import settings; print(settings.ALLOW_DDG_FALLBACK)'], cwd=tmp_path, env=env, capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=10)Fix: Build commands from fixed arguments, never from interpolated strings; prefer an API client over shelling out.
AST05
MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/test_packaging.py:68 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system filesassert not any("__pycache__" in p or p.endswith((".pyc", ".key", ".pem")) or ".env" in p or p.endswith("beta_keys.json") for p in paths)Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
MEDIUM
Hex-encoded URLtests/test_security_fetch.py:43 · Hex-encoded URL — attempt to bypass URL filtering"http://0x7f000001/",Fix: Put hosts, commands and strings in plain source. Decoding at runtime looks identical to malware and costs points on its own.
AST07
MEDIUM
URL with embedded credentialstests/test_usage_state.py:109 · URL with embedded credentials — may be phishing or credential leakingsecret_url = "https://alice:[email protected]/a?token=private-query"Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST07

Cost to the agent

Instructions loaded
≈54 tok
1 file · 60 in bundle
Tool list per prompt
≈0 tok
0 tools · 0 per tool
Handshake
no reply
launch to tools/list, stdio
Undocumented tools
0
description under 20 chars · avg 0

Tokens estimated at four characters each. The tool list is re-read by the agent on every turn, so it is the number to compare between servers that do the same job: ranked across the index.

Known vulnerabilities

No advisories in OSV for mcp-web-engine@1.2.1 as of 4d ago. This is the package itself, not its dependencies.