meraki-security-appliance

name	meraki-security-appliance
description	Cisco Meraki MX security appliance (read-only) — L3/L7 firewall rules, content filtering, IDS/IPS and AMP settings, site-to-site VPN, traffic shaping via Cisco's official Meraki MCP. Use when auditing Meraki firewall rules, reviewing content filtering, or inspecting MX VPN configuration
version	2.0.0
license	Apache-2.0
tags	["cisco","meraki","mx","firewall","security","vpn","content-filtering","read-only"]

Meraki Security Appliance Operations (read-only)

MCP Server

• Server: Cisco's official Meraki MCP — developer.cisco.com
• Endpoint: https://mcp.meraki.com/mcp (remote HTTP, no local install)
• Self-host fallback: CiscoDevNet/cisco-meraki-mcp-official (Apache-2.0)
• Requires: MERAKI_DASHBOARD_API_KEY — use a read-only dashboard key
• Tools: exactly two — semantic_search (discover) and execute_api (invoke)

Read-only, structurally

All 431 mutating Meraki operations (174 POST, 186 PUT, 71 DELETE) are absent from the capability catalogue. Only non-deprecated GETs are built in, so updateNetwork, rebootDevice, blinkDeviceLeds and friends return Capability not found.

Do not attempt writes and do not offer them. There is no ServiceNow CR path here because there is nothing to gate — a change must be made in the Meraki dashboard directly.

How to call it

Two capability IDs may be called directly; everything else must be discovered:

1. execute_api → getOrganizations — find accessible org IDs
2. execute_api → getOrganizationNetworks — find network IDs in the chosen org
3. semantic_search → describe the intent in words → returns ranked capability_ids
4. execute_api → the chosen capability_id + its required parameters

Discover, do not guess. An earlier version of this skill hardcoded 80 method names and 54 of them did not exist in the Meraki API at all — they failed regardless of server. semantic_search is the guard against that: it can only return IDs that exist.

Reading results honestly

• One page only. execute_api returns a single page. Request a bounded page size when supported, and never present a page as the complete dataset.

• Empty is not absent. n=0 means this network reported none, never none exist. Live proof from a real sandbox org: getOrganizationDevices returns 0 devices while the same org has a fully configured network with 15 SSIDs.

• Three distinct errors, three different fixes:

  Error	Meaning	Fix
  Capability not found	ID is mutating, deprecated, or invented	semantic_search for a real one
  Resource not found	valid ID, wrong org/network/serial	re-derive the ID from step 1–2
  Invalid parameters	valid ID, missing a required parameter	read the capability's parameters

  Never report any of the three as "no data" — none of them mean that.

Verified capabilities

Live-verified against a real branch_office network with an appliance:

Capability ID	Verified result
getNetworkApplianceFirewallL3FirewallRules	L3 rules present
getNetworkApplianceFirewallSettings	firewall settings present
getNetworkApplianceContentFiltering	3 content-filtering fields
getNetworkApplianceTrafficShaping	traffic-shaping config present
getNetworkApplianceVlans	Invalid parameters — needs appliance VLANs enabled first

There are 74 real appliance capabilities. Also useful: getNetworkApplianceFirewallL7FirewallRules, getNetworkApplianceFirewallCellularFirewallRules, getNetworkApplianceFirewallInboundFirewallRules, getNetworkApplianceSecurityMalware, getNetworkApplianceClientSecurityEvents, getNetworkApplianceVpnSiteToSiteVpn, getNetworkApplianceContentFilteringCategories. Confirm with semantic_search.

Workflow: Firewall rule audit

1. getOrganizations → getOrganizationNetworks → pick the appliance network
2. getNetworkApplianceFirewallL3FirewallRules — the L3 rule set, in order
3. getNetworkApplianceFirewallL7FirewallRules — application-layer rules
4. getNetworkApplianceFirewallSettings — spoofing protection and defaults
5. getNetworkApplianceContentFiltering — blocked categories and URL patterns
6. Report the rule set in evaluation order. A rule list presented out of order is worse than no list, because first-match wins and the reader will draw the wrong conclusion.

Rule order matters and there is a default rule you did not fetch. Meraki applies a final implicit rule; say so rather than implying the fetched list is exhaustive.

Workflow: Security posture review

1. getNetworkApplianceSecurityIntrusion — IDS/IPS mode and ruleset
2. getNetworkApplianceSecurityMalware — AMP enablement
3. getNetworkApplianceClientSecurityEvents — observed events (one page only)
4. getNetworkApplianceVpnSiteToSiteVpn — VPN mode, hubs, exported subnets
5. Report enablement state separately from observed events. No events is not "secure" — it may mean nothing was seen, the window was short, or logging is off.

Important Rules

• No writes exist. Firewall, content-filtering, IDS and VPN changes go through the dashboard. There is no CR to raise here because there is no write path to gate.
• Present rules in order, and name the implicit default.
• Absence of security events is not evidence of security.
• Record in GAIT — log every firewall and posture audit.

Integration with Other Skills

Skill	How They Work Together
meraki-network-ops	Network context and VLAN topology for rule interpretation
meraki-switch-ops	Trace a VLAN from firewall rule back to switch port
fortinet-firewall-ops	Compare Meraki MX policy against FortiGate policy
gait-session-tracking	Record all firewall audits

Environment Variables

• MERAKI_DASHBOARD_API_KEY — Meraki Dashboard API key (read-only recommended)