Skills/PyPI/nara-catalog-mcp

nara-catalog-mcp@1.1.0

VERIFIED· not started

Publisher claims: "MCP server for genealogical research in the US National Archives Catalog: search records, read OCR text and citizen transcriptions, browse the hierarchy, and download page images." Observed in sandbox: no network, touches nothing outside the project, writes no memory.

Registry PyPI (MCP server)Publisher ianderso · publishing for 47 daysInstalls 428Last detonated 38 h ago
$claude mcp add nara-catalog-mcp -- uvx nara-catalog-mcp
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Coverage

Not started: dependency install failed; the server itself was not observed.
Tested
the dependency install step · every file read, file written and host contacted by what ran
Not tested
server startup · the tool list · tool behavior

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
NARA_API_KEYConfiguration, not credentials: NARA_CACHE_DIR, NARA_MONTHLY_CALL_BUDGET, NARA_TIMEOUT
Where it talks to
no vendor host named in the codeAlso archives.gov — 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
server startup · the tool list · tool behavior

Connect it with a scoped credential, under the guard, and read the third-party hosts first. The code names archives.gov as well as its own vendor. The guard injects NARA_API_KEY only into requests to the host you bind (and its subdomains) and refuses the rest.

$vet-skills run --net declared -- uvx nara-catalog-mcp

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; not started: dependency install failed; the server itself was not observed) on 2026-11-13 and scored it 87/100 (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 · 0 s · 2 scenarios · 0 deviations
t+CategoryObserved action
0.0sprocessno install scripts in bundle
0.1sprocessdependency install exit 1 ·
0.1sclaimednot started: dependency install failed (exit 1); the server itself was not observed
0.1sprocessscript backend runs setup only
0.1sprocessno install scripts to re-run

Static findings

MEDIUM
Access to sensitive file pathstests/live_check.py:13 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files``.env``), uses the server's own cache directory with ``refresh`` on everyFix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathssrc/nara_catalog_mcp/config.py:28 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files#: The value ``.env.example`` ships with, which is not a key.Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathssrc/nara_catalog_mcp/config.py:12 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system filesA ``.env`` file in the working directory supplies any of these that theFix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathssrc/nara_catalog_mcp/config.py:84 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files``.env.example`` placeholder, or a numeric setting is not a positiveFix: 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_config.py:20 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files``.env`` put there in between -- so nothing leaks into other tests.Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathssrc/nara_catalog_mcp/config.py:65 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files``site-packages``: it would ignore the ``.env`` beside the user and couldFix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05
HIGH
Access to sensitive file pathssrc/nara_catalog_mcp/config.py:61 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system filesA ``.env`` file in the working directory is read if present; realFix: 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_config.py:89 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files"""The documented setup: a .env beside where the server is started."""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_config.py:1 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files"""Configuration: the key, the optional settings, and where .env is read from."""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_config.py:90 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files(isolated / ".env").write_text("NARA_API_KEY=from-dotenv\nNARA_TIMEOUT=7\n")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_config.py:36 · Access to sensitive file paths — SSH keys, AWS credentials, env files, or system files"""Copying .env.example without editing it would otherwise just 401."""Fix: Stop enumerating or reading credential locations; take secrets from a declared environment variable the user sets on purpose.
AST05

Cost to the agent

Instructions loaded
≈83 tok
1 file · 47 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 nara-catalog-mcp@1.1.0 as of 38 h ago. This is the package itself, not its dependencies.