A connected tool reports permission denied: how should access be diagnosed?
When a tool reports insufficient permission, check its actual account, target resource and authorization scope before expanding access. Successful authentication establishes identity, not permission for a specific operation.
Start troubleshooting here
When a tool reports insufficient permission, check its actual account, target resource and authorization scope before expanding access. Successful authentication establishes identity, not permission for a specific operation. Verify a permitted resource with a minimal read-only request and preserve legitimate denials. Administrator access does not mean every user should have the same access.
Check the tool’s actual identity and target workspace
This applies when the tool is connected and login works but a file or action is denied. Record the error and resource identifier, then check workspace or tenant membership before investigating the wrong organization. Logs must not contain real tokens, and the browser’s signed-in identity may differ from the identity used by the backend tool.
Separate credential failures from resource access limits
Separate expired credentials from insufficient resource authorization, then check that the target service matches the token audience. Verify required scopes and resource-specific access controls. Services use status codes differently, so inspect the machine-readable error type rather than deciding solely from the digits “403”.
Compare access with minimal read-only requests
With the current account, read a test resource explicitly allowed to it and compare authorization with the failing resource. Use the established authorization process to add only genuinely needed scopes instead of disabling service checks. If access is legitimately unavailable, preserve the denial and explain the limit; do not automatically switch to a more privileged identity.
Verify both allowed access and correct rejection
Verify that permitted resources work and unauthorized resources remain denied without exposing restricted content. After an approved permission change, repeat the original operation and check token refresh and client authorization caches. Record actual identity and scope using public-safe identifiers only, without passwords or tokens.
This article changed no real account permissions and does not approve additional scopes. MCP authorization and business-resource permissions can exist at different layers and need separate checks. If the tool cannot show its identity, maintainers should verify it through secure logs. Never paste complete credentials into chat or a public error page for convenience.
Checked sources
These sources support the concepts and methods described here. Examples and test scope are labeled separately; check the version of the tools you use.