Each tool in ToolPiper can be set to Allow, Ask or Deny. Allow runs the tool without asking, Ask stops and asks you first, and Deny refuses it. You choose the rule for a tool under MCP Tools in ToolPiper, and a saved rule applies to every app and agent that calls that tool, never to one app only.

The answers on a prompt

A tool set to Ask shows the same answers wherever the question appears:

  • Allow once runs this call and remembers nothing.
  • Allow for session runs it and stops asking about that tool for the same caller until its conversation, voice session or app connection ends.
  • Always allow runs it and sets the tool to Allow, exactly as choosing Allow under MCP Tools does.
  • Deny refuses this call and remembers nothing.
  • Always deny refuses it and sets the tool to Deny.

Some prompts offer fewer answers. A tool that runs commands or files offers Allow once, Deny and Always deny, because no answer may cover a later call of it. A set of steps approved together offers Allow once and Deny. A prompt you answer with your password or Touch ID has no Allow for session: each call is confirmed.

Where the question appears

ModelPiper chat asks in its own dialog. Voice asks aloud, or on a notification card when Conversation is off. An app connected to ToolPiper asks in its own approval prompt when it shows one, and on ToolPiper's approval card on the Mac when it does not. Anything that needs your password or Touch ID is answered on ToolPiper's card on the Mac.

When a password or Touch ID is needed

That follows the level you pick under Security in ToolPiper: Disabled, Default, Balanced or Strict. When an agent calls a tool you have not chosen a rule for:

  • At Disabled nothing asks.
  • At Default a tool that acts asks, and a click answers it. Acting means changing something, reaching the network, running commands or destroying something.
  • At Balanced a tool that runs commands or destroys something needs your password or Touch ID instead of a click.
  • At Strict every tool that acts needs your password or Touch ID.

A tool that only reads runs at every level. A tool you set to Ask yourself is answered with a click at every level.

Saving a looser rule follows the level too. Always allow, choosing Allow under MCP Tools and loosening a Deny are a click at Disabled and Default, and need your password or Touch ID at Balanced and Strict. If you pick Always allow and do not give it, the call still runs and the answer holds for the session. A stricter rule, Always deny or choosing Ask or Deny, is always a click.

When an app asks for a looser rule

An outside app cannot save an Allow by itself. When Always allow is picked in an app's own prompt, or an app requests a looser rule, the call runs and the answer holds for that app's session. The lasting rule waits as a request on ToolPiper's card on the Mac, which names the app and each tool's rule before and after, and offers Accept and Decline. Nothing is saved until you accept, and at Balanced and Strict your password or Touch ID follows the Accept. Always deny picked in an app's prompt is saved at once, because it is a stricter rule.

What Deny does

A tool set to Deny is refused for every caller and raises no prompt, so no answer to a prompt can loosen it. To use it again, change its rule under MCP Tools, or accept an app's request to loosen it.