MCP AtlasMCP Atlas

Hub and Spoke

A single central MCP gateway routes all agent requests to downstream services — full audit trail, unified auth, and consistent policy enforcement.

Pattern: Hub and Spoke

Summary

All agent requests flow through a single central MCP gateway. The gateway handles authentication, authorization, rate-limiting, and audit logging before routing to downstream MCP servers.

Diagram

         [AI Agent]
             ↓
    [Central MCP Gateway]
    /        |         \
[HR MCP] [Docs MCP] [Code MCP]

When to use

  • Regulated industries (finance, healthcare, legal)
  • When a single audit trail is required
  • When multiple agents need access to the same set of tools
  • When security policy must be enforced uniformly

Trade-offs

Pro Con
Unified auth & audit Gateway is a single point of failure
Easy policy enforcement Latency overhead per request
Simple mental model Requires dedicated gateway team

Real-world reference

Block's MCP deployment uses a hub-and-spoke model with a dedicated MCP infrastructure team.