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24/06/2026 7:09 pm
TL;DR: MCP registries give AI agents a centralized way to discover tools, but Kong’s analysis shows the real issue is governance: without access control, auditability, and gateway enforcement, discovery becomes unmanaged shadow AI at runtime. That shifts the control point from integration convenience to identity, policy, and observability.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Kong: What is an MCP Registry? The Centralized Directory for AI Agents
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams govern AI agents that discover tools at runtime?
A: Security teams should treat agent tool discovery as an access event, not a documentation lookup.
Q: Why do MCP registries create new IAM and NHI governance requirements?
A: Because they centralize the discovery of machine-consumable tools, they also centralize the point where policy can fail.
Q: What breaks when AI agents can access tools without a central registry?
A: Teams lose the ability to see, standardize, and revoke tool access consistently.
Practitioner guidance
- Define registry ownership and approval rules Establish who can publish MCP servers, who can approve entries, and what metadata is mandatory before discovery is allowed.
- Bind discovery to runtime enforcement Connect the registry to an MCP gateway or equivalent enforcement layer so approved discovery does not become uncontrolled access.
- Separate environments in the catalog Prevent development agents from discovering production tools unless access is explicitly authorised.
What's in the full article
Kong's full blog covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Specification-level differences between community, consortium, and enterprise MCP registries for production planning.
- Implementation details for per-environment access control, allowlisting, and audit trails inside an enterprise registry.
- How Kong positions registry governance alongside AI gateway enforcement for runtime policy decisions.
- Criteria for deciding when a private registry is preferable to a public discovery catalog.
👉 Read Kong's guide to MCP registries for AI agent governance →
MCP registries: what they mean for agent governance and access?
Explore further
25/06/2026 4:19 am
Registry sprawl is becoming the new identity sprawl for AI agents. The same control failure that once produced unmanaged API sprawl now appears in MCP tool discovery. When every agent can discover tools through isolated configs, no one can reliably answer which identity reached which service, under what policy, or across which environment. That turns discovery into a governance problem, not an inventory problem. Practitioners should treat registry design as part of the identity control plane.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 92% agree governing AI agents is critical to enterprise security, yet only 44% have implemented any policies to do so, according to AI Agents: The New Attack Surface report.
- Only 52% of companies can track and audit the data their AI agents access, leaving 48% with a complete blind spot for compliance and breach investigation, according to AI Agents: The New Attack Surface report.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between an MCP registry and an MCP gateway?
A: A registry helps agents discover tools and connection metadata. A gateway decides whether the agent is allowed to use those tools and under what constraints. Enterprises need both, because discovery without enforcement leaves access uncontrolled, while enforcement without discovery forces rigid hardcoded integrations.
👉 Read our full editorial: MCP registries are becoming the control point for AI agents
