qdrant-mcp-rbac

Maintained by Fidonis · See TRADEMARK.md for the trademark notice.

Same MCP tool call, two identities, two different result sets — server-side enforcement.

A FastMCP server that exposes a Qdrant vector database over streamable HTTP with OIDC-based authentication (Keycloak-compatible) and role-based access control mapped onto Qdrant's native JWT access rules.

Role grants are stored as data inside a dedicated Qdrant collection, not in configuration files — admins manage them at runtime via MCP tools.

┌──────────┐   OIDC Bearer   ┌─────────────────┐   Qdrant JWT    ┌──────────┐
│ MCP host │ ──────────────▶ │ qdrant-mcp-rbac │ ──────────────▶ │  Qdrant  │
│ (client) │                 │   (FastMCP)     │                 │          │
└──────────┘                 └─────────────────┘                 │  ┌─────┐ │
                                     │                           │  │_rbac│ │
                                     ▼                           │  │_acl │ │
                                 Keycloak                        │  └─────┘ │
                                 (JWKS, OIDC discovery)          └──────────┘

Quick start (Docker)

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e OIDC_ISSUER_URL=https://kc.example.com/realms/myrealm \
  -e OIDC_AUDIENCE=mcp-server \
  -e QDRANT_URL=http://qdrant:6333 \
  -e QDRANT_JWT_SECRET=<same secret as Qdrant's api-key> \
  ghcr.io/fidonis/qdrant-mcp-rbac:latest

/mcp is the streamable-HTTP endpoint, /health is unauthenticated. See the full docker/.env.example for every variable.

How it works

1. The MCP client sends a request with an OIDC access token (Authorization: Bearer …).
2. The OIDCAuthMiddleware validates the token against the OIDC provider's JWKS (signature, expiry, audience, issuer; see Token validation).
3. The JWTBuilder derives a Qdrant JWT for the user:
   • If the user is in the break-glass admin role (RBAC_ADMIN_ROLE), a global-manage token is minted directly.
   • Otherwise, the AclResolver returns the cached role -> [grants] mapping built from the ACL collection (RBAC_ACL_COLLECTION, default _rbac_acl).
4. The Qdrant JWT is attached to the request scope.
5. Each MCP tool checks the user's effective access for the targeted collection and forwards the request to Qdrant using the derived JWT.

Token validation

Tokens are validated with PyJWT against the keys published by the issuer ({OIDC_ISSUER_URL}/.well-known/openid-configuration, then its jwks_uri):

• Signature algorithm comes from the signing key (its alg, or RS256 / ES256 for an RSA / EC key without one), never from the token header. Only RS256, RS384, RS512, ES256, ES384 and ES512 are accepted; symmetric (HS*) and none tokens are rejected.
• Required claims: exp, aud (must contain OIDC_AUDIENCE), iss (must equal the issuer in the discovery document) and a non-empty sub. A token without exp or aud is rejected. nbf is enforced when present.
• iat is not checked, so clock skew between this host and the identity provider does not reject freshly issued tokens.
• Key rotation: keys are cached for OIDC_JWKS_CACHE_TTL seconds. A token with an unknown kid triggers exactly one JWKS refresh before it is rejected.
• Roles are read from realm_access.roles and from every resource_access.<client>.roles.

ACL collection schema

Each grant is one point in _rbac_acl. The point id is a deterministic uuid5(role, collection), so re-granting is idempotent. Payload:

{ "role": "data-scientist", "collection": "embeddings_v2", "access": "rw" }

access is one of:

• r – read-only
• rw – read & write
• m – manage (global; collection is informational, convention: "*")

The collection is auto-created on first read by the server using a self-minted service token.

Document-level access control (doc_policy)

Collection-level access decides whether a role can read a collection at all. A grant may additionally carry an optional doc_policy that restricts which individual documents (points) inside that collection the role can see. The server translates the policy into a Qdrant payload filter and injects it as a must clause on every read — search_collection, search_collection_by_text, scroll_collection, and list_documents (faceting only over documents the role may see). Caller-supplied query_filter values are preserved; the doc filter is added alongside, so both apply together.

Grants without doc_policy behave exactly as before — every document in the collection is visible.

Schema

{
  "default": "allow" | "deny",
  "conditions": [
    { "field": "<payload field>", "mode": "allow" | "deny", "values": ["<v>", "…"] }
  ]
}

• default: "allow" — every document is visible by default; deny conditions hide matching ones.
• default: "deny" — no documents are visible by default; allow conditions expose matching ones.
• values: ["*"] — wildcard meaning "all documents". On an allow condition (default-deny) it cancels the filter, exposing the whole collection; on a deny condition (default-allow) it returns an empty result set.
• default: "deny" with no allow conditions → empty result set.

Multiple conditions of the same mode are unioned (a document is hidden by any deny condition; a document is exposed by any allow condition).

Multi-role merge

When a user holds several grants on the same collection (via different roles), the server merges their policies using the most-permissive rule:

• If any matching grant has no doc_policy, the user is unrestricted on that collection.
• If any matching grant has default: "allow", the merged policy is default: "allow" with the union of those grants' deny conditions (default-deny grants are ignored).
• Otherwise all grants are default: "deny" and their allow conditions are unioned.

Recommended payload field: acl_tags

A new optional acl_tags: list[str] field is reserved for documents that need access control. It is never required — documents without acl_tags remain fully functional:

• In default-allow grants, an untagged document is never matched by a deny condition on acl_tags → always visible.
• In default-deny grants, an untagged document never satisfies an allow condition on acl_tags → implicitly hidden.

The bootstrap script demo/bootstrap/vectorize.py reads an optional demo/data/acl_tags.yml sidecar mapping each Markdown source (POSIX path relative to the data directory) to a list of tags applied to every chunk ingested from that file.

Examples

Default-allow, deny confidential documents:

{
  "role": "finance-analyst",
  "collection": "finance",
  "access": "r",
  "doc_policy": {
    "default": "allow",
    "conditions": [
      { "field": "acl_tags", "mode": "deny", "values": ["confidential", "board-only"] }
    ]
  }
}

Default-deny, allow only public documents:

{
  "role": "guest",
  "collection": "finance",
  "access": "r",
  "doc_policy": {
    "default": "deny",
    "conditions": [
      { "field": "acl_tags", "mode": "allow", "values": ["public"] }
    ]
  }
}

Filtering on the source field (no acl_tags required):

{
  "role": "junior-analyst",
  "collection": "finance",
  "access": "r",
  "doc_policy": {
    "default": "deny",
    "conditions": [
      { "field": "source", "mode": "allow", "values": ["annual-report.md", "q4-summary.md"] }
    ]
  }
}

grant_access accepts the same shape:

{
  "tool": "grant_access",
  "args": {
    "role": "guest",
    "collection": "finance",
    "access": "r",
    "doc_policy": {
      "default": "deny",
      "conditions": [
        { "field": "acl_tags", "mode": "allow", "values": ["public"] }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Layout

The repo separates the production server (src/) from demo material (demo/). src/ and each project under demo/ is its own uv project with its own pyproject.toml and .venv — there is no virtual environment in the repo root.

src/                       # uv project: the FastMCP server
  pyproject.toml
  uv.lock
  .venv/                   # created by `uv sync` (gitignored)
  .env                     # local config (gitignored)
  .env.example             # template for `.env`
  main.py                  # Entry point (uvicorn)
  config.py                # Settings (pydantic-settings, .env)
  auth/
    models.py              # OIDCClaims, CollectionAccess, AclEntry, QdrantToken
    oidc.py                # JWKS-based OIDC token validator (PyJWT)
    acl.py                 # AclResolver: TTL-cached read of the ACL collection
    jwt_builder.py         # Builds Qdrant JWTs from claims + ACL mapping
  qdrant/
    client.py              # AsyncQdrantClient factory (per-request, JWT-scoped)
    collections.py         # Thin async wrappers around Qdrant collection operations
    meta.py                # Read/write helpers for the _collection_meta system collection
  mcp_app/                 # named `mcp_app` to avoid shadowing the installed `mcp` SDK
    server.py              # FastMCP instance + Starlette app wiring
    tools.py               # MCP tools: data tools + ACL admin tools
    middleware.py          # ASGI auth middleware: OIDC → Qdrant JWT

tests/                     # pytest suite, run from src/ (kept out of the Docker image)
  fakes/oidc.py            # In-process OIDC issuer: RSA key, JWKS, token minting
  test_doc_filter.py
  test_facet.py
  test_jwt_builder.py
  test_oidc_validator.py
  test_scroll.py

demo/                      # everything for the end-to-end demo
  README.md                # Demo quickstart (order of operations)
  bootstrap/               # uv project: vectorize Markdown → Qdrant collections
    pyproject.toml
    uv.lock
    .venv/
    vectorize.py
  client/                  # uv project: OIDC + LLM CLI client
    pyproject.toml
    uv.lock
    .venv/
    client.py
    agent.py
    oidc.py
    config.py
  data/                    # demo seed data (Markdown, collection = file stem up to the first "-")
    finance-2025.md
    finance-2026.md
    finance-aquise.md
    it.md
    sales.md

Setup

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• uv installed
• A reachable OIDC provider (e.g. Keycloak)
• A reachable Qdrant instance with JWT RBAC enabled

Install

cd src
uv sync

This creates src/.venv with all dependencies. The repo root has no .venv of its own.

Configure

Copy the example env file and adjust values:

cp src/.env.example src/.env

The server reads src/.env (resolved relative to config.py), so keep it inside src/ regardless of the working directory you run from.

Important variables:

Run

cd src
uv run python main.py

Run with Docker

To run the server itself in a container instead of on the host, use the compose file in docker/:

cp docker/.env.example docker/.env   # then edit secrets and OIDC_ISSUER_URL
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -d

This builds the image from docker/Dockerfile and starts the mcp-server container (published on :8000, with a /health health-check) alongside Qdrant. Keycloak is not included — point OIDC_ISSUER_URL in docker/.env at an external OIDC provider. Every variable is documented in docker/.env.example.

Bootstrapping access

1. Assign one user the qdrant-admin realm role in Keycloak.
2. Start the server.
3. As that user, call the grant_access tool to provision other roles:

// MCP tool call
{
  "tool": "grant_access",
  "args": { "role": "data-scientist", "collection": "embeddings_v2", "access": "rw" }
}

4. Other users with the data-scientist role now get an rw JWT scoped to embeddings_v2.

Tools

Data tools

search_collection_by_text accepts a natural-language query, embeds it via the configured OpenAI-compatible endpoint using the model recorded at bootstrap time, and runs the resulting vector search.

scroll_collection lists raw points (chunks) without a query. It pages through the collection via the next_offset cursor it returns (null on the last page). Use it to inspect the actual stored points.

list_documents answers "which / how many documents are in collection X?". It aggregates points by their source payload field server-side (Qdrant faceting) and returns one deduplicated entry per document with its chunk count — prefer it over scroll_collection for inventory questions, since a single document spans many chunks. Faceting requires a keyword payload index on source; the bootstrap creates it, and the server also creates it on first use if it is missing, so no manual step is needed.

upsert_points and delete_points refuse to operate on system collections (_rbac_acl, _collection_meta) — use the admin tools or bootstrap instead.

ACL admin tools (require global manage)

Mutations invalidate the local cache immediately; out-of-band edits to the ACL collection (e.g. via the Qdrant API directly) become visible after at most RBAC_ACL_CACHE_TTL seconds.

Local development with docker-compose

To start only Qdrant for local server development, use the qdrant service from docker/docker-compose.yml. Pass src/.env so that Compose can read QDRANT_JWT_SECRET:

docker compose --env-file src/.env -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -d qdrant

This starts:

• Qdrant on :6333 (with JWT RBAC enabled, signing key from QDRANT_JWT_SECRET)

Create a realm, a confidential client with audience mcp-server, the qdrant-admin role, and any per-team roles you plan to grant access to. Assign roles to test users.

Qdrant JWT setup

qdrant-mcp-rbac signs JWTs with QDRANT_JWT_SECRET (HS256). Qdrant must be configured to accept JWTs and use the same secret as its API key:

# qdrant config.yaml
service:
  api_key: <same value as QDRANT_JWT_SECRET>
  jwt_rbac: true

The derived JWT structure for a non-admin user is:

{
  "exp": 1735689600,
  "access": [
    { "collection": "col_a", "access": "r" },
    { "collection": "col_b", "access": "rw" }
  ]
}

For admins (or any grant with access: "m"):

{ "exp": 1735689600, "access": "m" }

Calling from an MCP client

Pass the OIDC access token in the Authorization header:

TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST \
  -d "client_id=mcp-cli" -d "username=alice" -d "password=…" \
  -d "grant_type=password" \
  https://kc.example.com/realms/myrealm/protocol/openid-connect/token | jq -r .access_token)

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
     -H "Accept: text/event-stream" \
     http://localhost:8000/mcp

About Fidonis

qdrant-mcp-rbac is built and maintained by Fidonis. We help companies run their own AI infrastructure end to end — open source, open standards, no vendor lock-in. This project covers one specific piece of the picture: enforce who can read what in your vector store without baking ACLs into config files.

If you are building a similar self-hosted stack and want to talk shop, drop by at fidonis.de.

License

qdrant-mcp-rbac is released under the MIT license — Copyright (c) 2026 Fidonis GmbH (in Gründung) and contributors.

• See TRADEMARK.md for the trademark notice covering the name "Fidonis" and the project name qdrant-mcp-rbac.
• See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md for the licenses of the third-party Python dependencies bundled with this project.
• See CONTRIBUTING.md for the Inbound = Outbound (MIT) rule and the list of license categories that contributions may not introduce without prior approval.

"Qdrant" is a registered trademark of Qdrant Solutions GmbH. Use of the name in this project is nominative — it describes the upstream component the server is built on and does not imply endorsement.