MCP Gateway

TL;DR * An MCP gateway is a control layer between AI agents and MCP servers that centralizes authentication, tool discovery, access control, credential management, and audit logging behind one endpoint. * Direct agent-to-server connections create N×M credential sprawl, no central policy, and no unified record of tool calls

TL;DR * An MCP governance framework is the set of identity, authorization, tool-scope, cost, and audit controls an organization applies to every MCP server its AI agents can reach. * A December 2025 survey of 300 IT and security professionals by the Cloud Security Alliance and Google Cloud, The State

TL;DR * MCP authentication proves who a caller is to an MCP server; for HTTP servers that implement authorization, the 2026-07-28 spec requires OAuth 2.1, RFC 9728 metadata, and RFC 8707 resource indicators, and deprecates Dynamic Client Registration. * The spec covers authentication, not authorization, so deciding which

TL;DR * The best MCP gateways for enterprises centralize authentication, enforce per-tool access policies, and record every tool invocation between AI agents and MCP servers. * Bifrost is an open-source AI gateway that acts as both MCP client and MCP server, adds 11 microseconds of overhead at 5,000

TL;DR * Putting MCP server credentials in Claude Code's settings.json, .mcp.json, or environment files spreads secrets to every developer machine with no rotation path and no audit trail. * Bifrost stores upstream MCP credentials on the gateway and gives each developer a scoped virtual key, so Claude

TL;DR * Bifrost is the best enterprise MCP gateway for low-latency, high-throughput workloads, adding 11µs of core gateway overhead per request at 5,000 RPS with a 100% success rate in published benchmarks. * MCP gateway overhead compounds across every model turn and tool call, so an agent stack