MCP RBAC Demo

A working example of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server built with ASP.NET Core that enforces Role-Based Access Control on every tool call. The idea is simple: different users get access to different tools depending on their role, and the server rejects anything they shouldn't be touching.

This is meant as a reference project. It's small enough to read in one sitting but covers the patterns you'd actually use in a real system — EF Core for persistence, a clean RBAC service, and the official MCP C# SDK for the protocol layer.

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What's inside

The server exposes four MCP tools over HTTP (Streamable HTTP transport). Each tool is gated by role:

Tool	What it does	Allowed roles
inventory_lookup	Search products by SKU or name	Admin, Manager
generate_report	Sales summary for a date range	Manager, Viewer
manage_users	List, add, or deactivate users	Admin
system_status	Health check, uptime, runtime info	Admin, Manager, Viewer

Three demo users are seeded on first run:

User	Role	Can use
alice	Admin	All four tools
bob	Manager	inventory_lookup, generate_report, system_status
carol	Viewer	generate_report, system_status

Authentication is intentionally simple — pass an X-User-Id header with the username. No JWT, no OAuth. This keeps the focus on the RBAC pattern rather than auth plumbing.

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Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK (or later)
• That's it. SQLite is embedded — no database server needed.

Getting started

cd McpRbacDemo
dotnet run

The server starts on http://localhost:5000 by default (check console output for the actual URL). The MCP endpoint is at /mcp.

Testing with curl

The MCP protocol uses JSON-RPC over HTTP. Here are some quick examples.

Initialize the session:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-User-Id: alice" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "initialize",
    "params": {
      "protocolVersion": "2025-03-26",
      "capabilities": {},
      "clientInfo": { "name": "curl-test", "version": "1.0" }
    }
  }'

List available tools:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-User-Id: alice" \
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: <session-id-from-init>" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 2,
    "method": "tools/list",
    "params": {}
  }'

Call a tool (as alice — Admin):

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-User-Id: alice" \
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: <session-id-from-init>" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 3,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "system_status",
      "arguments": {}
    }
  }'

Try a tool carol can't access:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-User-Id: carol" \
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: <session-id-from-init>" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 4,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "inventory_lookup",
      "arguments": { "query": "mouse" }
    }
  }'

Carol is a Viewer, so this returns an error: "Access denied. User 'carol' does not have permission to use 'inventory_lookup'."

Testing with MCP Inspector

If you have MCP Inspector installed, point it at http://localhost:5000/mcp and set the X-User-Id header to one of the demo users. You'll be able to browse tools and call them interactively.

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Project structure

McpRbacDemo/
  Program.cs                    — App startup, DI wiring, MCP + EF Core config
  appsettings.json              — Connection string and logging config
  Data/
    AppDbContext.cs              — EF Core context (Users, Roles, UserRoles)
    SeedData.cs                 — Creates demo users and roles on first run
  Models/
    User.cs                     — User entity
    Role.cs                     — Role entity
    UserRole.cs                 — Many-to-many join entity
  Services/
    IRbacService.cs             — Interface for the RBAC service
    RbacService.cs              — Role lookups and tool-permission checks
  Tools/
    InventoryTools.cs           — inventory_lookup tool
    ReportTools.cs              — generate_report tool
    UserManagementTools.cs      — manage_users tool
    StatusTools.cs              — system_status tool
  Middleware/
    RbacToolFilter.cs           — MCP CallTool filter that enforces RBAC

McpRbacDemo.Tests/              — xUnit test project (39 tests)
  RbacServiceTests.cs           — Permission map and role lookup tests
  SeedDataTests.cs              — Database seeding and idempotency tests
  InventoryToolsTests.cs        — Inventory search tests
  ReportToolsTests.cs           — Report generation and validation tests
  StatusToolsTests.cs           — System status output tests
  UserManagementToolsTests.cs   — User CRUD operation tests

Running the tests

dotnet test

How the RBAC works

1. Every HTTP request to the MCP endpoint includes an X-User-Id header.
2. When a tools/call request arrives, the RbacToolFilter fires before the tool executes.
3. The filter reads the header, looks up the user's roles in SQLite via RbacService, and checks whether any of those roles are allowed for the requested tool.
4. If the check fails, the filter returns an error result directly — the tool never runs.

The permission map lives in RbacService.cs as a simple dictionary. In a real project you'd probably move this to configuration or a database table, but for a demo it keeps things readable.

Extending it

Add a new tool: Create a class in Tools/, decorate it with [McpServerToolType], and add methods with [McpServerTool(Name = "your_tool_name")]. Then add the tool name and allowed roles to the ToolPermissions dictionary in RbacService.cs.

Add a new role: Insert it in SeedData.cs (or at runtime via manage_users), then reference it in the permission map.

Switch to real auth: Replace the X-User-Id header check in RbacToolFilter with ASP.NET Core's built-in [Authorize] attributes and AddAuthorizationFilters(). The MCP C# SDK supports this natively.

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Tech stack

• ASP.NET Core 8 — Web host and HTTP transport
• MCP C# SDK v1.1.0 — Model Context Protocol implementation
• Entity Framework Core 8 + SQLite — Persistence for users and roles
• xUnit + EF Core InMemory — Unit testing

License

This is a demo project. Use it however you like.