APC Security Reference Server

APC — Action • Proof • Control

Open-source community alpha. APC explores how an agent's authority can remain bound to the exact operation, target, and material parameters that reach a protected side-effect boundary—and how the result can be evidenced.

Important: This repository is a developer-evaluation release, not a production security certification. Do not use it to authorize live payments, account changes, infrastructure mutations, or other sensitive external actions. The bundled runtime defaults to synthetic DEMO mode. Its LAB mode writes to a local SQLite sandbox only.

Why APC exists

Agent systems cross model, tool, workflow, and provider boundaries. An approval at one point does not by itself prove that the same operation and parameters reach the final system. APC's design goal is to bind approval context to an action and re-check that binding at the final protected effect boundary.

APC is complementary to—not a replacement for—customer identity providers, OAuth/OIDC, policy decision points such as OPA or Cedar, agent frameworks, MCP, workflow orchestrators, cloud IAM, provider idempotency, or SIEM platforms.

Repository contents

Quick start — source checkout

Requires Python 3.11 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/Aleph-Lab-s/apc-open-core.git

cd apc-open-core python -m venv .venv . .venv/bin/activate # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate python -m pip install --upgrade pip python -m pip install -e ".[test,mcp]" apc status apc integrations

The GitHub URL above is the intended repository name, not a claim that it has already been created. The root server.json is a draft MCP Registry descriptor; it has not been submitted or approved. Until the package is published to PyPI, install from a local checkout as shown above. After publication, the planned install form is:

python -m pip install "apc-action-security[mcp]"

Run the MCP reference server

python -m pip install -e ".[mcp]"

apc-mcp

The server uses stdio. Add it to an MCP client using that client's local process configuration. Available tools:

• apc_health — runtime health and mode.
• apc_integration_status — catalog with honest implementation labels.
• apc_evaluate_action — synthetic action evaluation; no external side effect.
• apc_lab_sqlite_action — disabled by default; when deliberately enabled with APC_MCP_ENABLE_LAB=1, writes only to a local SQLite sandbox using a test-only ALLOW fixture.

This server does not transparently instrument other MCP servers, inspect every tool call in a host process, or guarantee coverage of bypass paths. A protected integration must be added server-side, and the actual provider mutation must pass through the protected wrapper.

Run the local tests

python -m pytest -q

PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 PYTHONPATH=src python tests/deep_security_test.py

Actual implementation limits

• APC_MODE=DEMO is synthetic and performs no protected external effect.
• LAB uses local SQLite as a reference sink. It is not a real customer/provider adapter.
• PILOT and PRODUCTION effect execution are blocked by the current service until a customer integration/profile exists.
• The default evaluation engine generates in-process ephemeral signing keys. This is not a deployment-grade KMS/HSM/key-rotation design.
• The current Kubernetes chart is one replica with local SQLite/RWO storage. It is not an HA/distributed profile.
• OPA and Cedar entries are simulated; Okta, GitHub, AWS and GCP event/effect adapters are unavailable in this build; Stripe entry is a sandbox declaration only. See docs/integration-status.md.
• No independent penetration test, cryptographic review, formal verification, certification, production SLA, or live-provider conformance is claimed.

Project status and release note

Public package version: 0.1.0a1 (community alpha). The included apc_product runtime identifies its source snapshot as APC Enterprise 7.1.4, release channel certification-candidate. The 7.1.4 internal candidate test evidence is not an external certification and is not a production guarantee. See docs/release-validation.md and docs/production-readiness.md.

Contribute

We want tough technical review: threat-model criticism, bypass demonstrations in controlled test environments, reproducible bugs, adapter conformance ideas, documentation improvements, and integration pull requests. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, spec/APC-Action-Continuity-Protocol-0.1-DRAFT.md, and docs/roadmap.md.

License

Apache License 2.0 is proposed for this public source release. Before pushing publicly, the project owner must confirm copyright ownership, contributor authority, source provenance, and dependency/license obligations. See docs/licensing-and-ownership.md.