cloudflareAug 14, 2026

How Cloudflare detects MCP traffic and helps secure it (opens in new tab)

AI agents change the risk model for resource permissions because they make nondeterministic decisions and can repeat actions at machine speed. A mistaken judgment that a human might quickly catch can become thousands of harmful operations before anyone notices. Cloudflare’s new Cloudflare One capabilities aim to detect MCP traffic, identify its users and servers, and enforce approved routes through MCP Server Portals. ## Why AI Agents Require New Controls - Traditional permissions assumed users would apply judgment and act at a limited human pace. - AI agents can invoke tools repeatedly and indefinitely. - A single incorrect decision can rapidly propagate across databases, SaaS systems, or infrastructure. - MCP makes it easy to connect clients such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, and VS Code to approved or unapproved tools. - Direct MCP traffic can resemble ordinary HTTPS because MCP does not require a standard hostname or `/mcp` path. ## Anatomy of an MCP Tool Call An MCP request appears differently at three points: - **Client:** The agent decides to invoke a tool and supplies arguments. - **Network:** The request is transmitted as an HTTP transaction containing JSON-RPC. - **Server:** The server authenticates, validates, and dispatches the request to a tool handler. Useful protocol signals include: - Destination hostname and path - Authorization credentials - `MCP-Protocol-Version` - `Mcp-Method` - `Mcp-Name` - JSON-RPC request `id` - Tool arguments in `params` The tool name indicates the intended operation, while the arguments may contain sensitive data such as source code, customer information, search queries, or infrastructure-changing instructions. Responses can also contain sensitive results, making both request prevention and response inspection valuable. ## Controls Inside the MCP Client Client hooks can intervene after the model selects a tool but before the request is serialized. - Enforce server allowlists - Require confirmation for sensitive operations - Remove sensitive data from arguments - Support local `stdio` MCP servers that never generate network traffic The main limitation is operational: organizations must implement controls across every client employees use. Client telemetry also cannot provide a complete inventory unless the organization manages all relevant clients and devices. ## Controls at the Network Boundary A secure web gateway with TLS decryption can inspect remote MCP traffic independently of the client. - Associate requests with users and devices - Inspect destinations and MCP protocol headers - Detect direct connections outside approved MCP Portals - Block unauthorized traffic before it reaches the server - Use data loss prevention scanning to inspect JSON-RPC methods and arguments Network controls provide the broadest visibility into remote MCP usage, but they cannot see local `stdio` calls or traffic that bypasses managed network paths. ## Controls at the MCP Server The server has the deepest execution context because it knows the authenticated caller, parsed message, resolved tool, and validated arguments. Server-side middleware can: - Authorize users for specific tools - Apply rate limits - Inspect arguments - Log outcomes - Block requests before tool execution Cloudflare’s WriteGuard applies this approach to internal MCP servers by assigning tools risk tiers and enabled or disabled states. It can allow reads, attach attribution and audit events to approved writes, or block critical actions before their handlers run. Because enforcement occurs on the server, users cannot bypass it by changing clients or disabling local hooks. ## Layered MCP Security Each control point has a different strength: - **Client controls:** Earliest intervention and support for local MCP, but limited coverage. - **Network controls:** Broadest visibility into remote traffic and unmanaged MCP connections. - **Server controls:** Richest context and final prevention point before execution. A layered strategy can protect sensitive data before it leaves a device, identify shadow MCP usage, require trusted Portal-based access, and prevent unauthorized tools from executing.

ai-agentmodel-context-protocolaccess-controldata-loss-prevention+4

cloudflareAug 14, 2026

Secure all your internal vibe-coded applications — in one click (opens in new tab)

AI-driven development makes it easy for employees to deploy applications, but also increases the risk of unintentionally exposing company data. Cloudflare’s new Access integration for Workers makes applications private by default at the Worker or account level, regardless of how they are reached. It also exposes authenticated user identity directly in Worker code and supports private-by-default internal deployment platforms. ## Worker-Level Access Protection - Access authentication is enforced before requests reach application code. - Protection applies across custom domains, routes, `workers.dev` subdomains, and preview URLs. - Policies can cover: - Preview deployments only - Every hostname associated with a Worker - Attaching policies to the Worker eliminates the need to update Access settings whenever a new domain is added. - Existing identity providers, email addresses, domains, groups, and service tokens can control access. ## Account-Wide Private Defaults - An account-level policy automatically protects all current and future Workers. - Organizations can protect preview traffic, production traffic, or both. - Public Workers can explicitly bypass the account-wide policy. - For individual applications, Worker policies provide targeted protection. - When multiple policies apply, precedence is: - Hostname policies - Worker policies - Account policies ## Accessing User Identity in Worker Code - Authenticated requests expose identity through `ctx.access`. - `ctx.access.getIdentity()` returns information such as: - Email address - Name - Groups - Developers no longer need to parse, validate, and extract claims from Access JWTs manually. - Applications can use this identity for personalization, authorization, and per-user logging. - Code should handle requests without Access metadata, for example by returning a `403` response. ## Local Development and Testing - `wrangler dev` can simulate authenticated users locally. - An `access.dev` block in `wrangler.jsonc` defines a test audience and identity: ```json { "access": { "dev": { "aud": "my-app", "identity": { "email": "admin@company.com" } } } } ``` - Developers can change the configured email to test different user experiences without repeatedly deploying and authenticating through Access. ## Private Internal Deployment Platforms - Workers for Platforms can host many applications inside a namespace. - Traffic is routed through a shared dispatch Worker. - Protecting the dispatch Worker with Access makes every application deployed through it private by default. - Cloudflare provides an open-source example of an internal drag-and-drop deployment platform using this model. ## Infrastructure Behind the Feature - The capability relies on FL2, Cloudflare’s Rust-based modular proxy. - Workers routing had to be separated from execution so Cloudflare could determine the destination Worker before applying Access. - This routing change would have been more difficult in the older NGINX- and Lua-based FL1 architecture. Cloudflare’s approach shifts application security from an optional developer-configured step to an organizational default. Teams deploying internal or experimental Workers should use account-level or dispatch-level Access policies, while using Worker-level policies and local identity simulation for application-specific control and testing.

cloudflare-workersrustcloudflare-accessedge-computing+4

cloudflareAug 13, 2026

Total eclipse of the Internet: traffic impacts in Iceland, Spain, and Portugal (opens in new tab)

The August 12, 2025 total solar eclipse caused a measurable, temporary decline in Internet activity across Europe. Cloudflare Radar data shows that HTTP traffic dropped most sharply when the eclipse reached maximum obscuration, especially in countries along the path of totality. Traffic generally returned to normal within minutes as people resumed using their devices. ## Traffic Drops Matched Eclipse Timing - Cloudflare analyzed HTTP requests in five-minute intervals across affected countries. - Traffic reductions aligned closely with each location’s moment of maximum eclipse. - The strongest declines occurred in Iceland, Ireland, the UK, France, Spain, and Portugal. - Countries with only shallow partial eclipses, including Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Switzerland, saw little or no decline. - Regions experiencing deep eclipses recorded traffic drops of roughly 15% to 30%. - Traffic typically rebounded shortly after maximum obscuration. ## Eclipse Depth Predicted Internet Activity - Researchers compared each country’s peak solar obscuration with its average traffic change during the surrounding 15-minute window. - The results showed a clear downward relationship: greater obscuration generally produced larger traffic declines. - Local factors such as population density, cloud cover, and time of day caused some variation, but the precise timing supported the eclipse as the primary cause. - Solar obscuration was calculated geometrically using the apparent sizes and positions of the sun and moon, measuring how much of the sun’s disk was covered every five minutes. ## Iceland, Spain, and Portugal Saw the Largest Declines - Country-level traffic changes ranged from a 9.3% increase to a 46.7% decrease. - Iceland, Spain, and Portugal experienced the most dramatic reductions. - Norway and Sweden saw slight increases above normal levels. - Denmark experienced the smallest overall change, while Poland quickly returned to baseline. - Eclipse-day traffic was compared with the median traffic from the three previous Wednesdays, using matching times of day to reduce the effect of unusual weekly patterns. ## Physical Events Reshape Digital Behavior - The findings show that Internet traffic reflects where people direct their attention. - The eclipse reduced online activity because people temporarily stopped using their devices to observe it, not because of technical network problems. - Traffic normalized quickly afterward, demonstrating how a shared real-world event can create a continent-wide but short-lived shift in digital behavior. - Cloudflare Radar can be used to study similar changes during major global events.

data-visualizationcloudflare-radarstatistical-analysishttp+2

cloudflareAug 13, 2026

Certificate Transparency Monitoring is now generally available (opens in new tab)

Certificate Transparency Monitoring helps detect unexpected TLS certificates issued for a domain, but Cloudflare’s own frequent renewals created overwhelming noise. Cloudflare now filters certificates it issued or manages by matching their public-key fingerprints, so customers receive alerts primarily for certificates issued outside Cloudflare. The improved system is now generally available. ## The Problem with Certificate Transparency Alerts - CT monitoring alerts when a certificate for a customer’s hostname appears in a public CT log. - Cloudflare routinely issues certificates through: - Universal SSL - Advanced Certificate Manager - Total TLS - Backup Certificates - Short certificate lifetimes and automatic renewals generated repeated alerts—potentially up to six renewals per year for one certificate. - As certificate lifetimes move toward 47 days by 2029, this noise would increase further. - Customers reported disabling monitoring because routine renewals made meaningful alerts easy to overlook. ## Why Filtering Was Difficult - Certificate management and CT alerting operate as separate systems. - The ordering system knows which certificates Cloudflare creates, while the alerting system only sees public CT log data. - A certificate produces two CT entries: - A pre-certificate - The final certificate - Cloudflare used `stripped_fingerprint` to associate those entries, but the ordering system could not calculate it early enough. - Since the pre-certificate might reach the CT log before the final certificate is recorded internally, lookups could fail and generate duplicate or unnecessary alerts. ## Using the Public Key as the Identifier - Cloudflare needed an identifier that was: - Created before logging begins - Stable from CSR through final certificate - Recomputable from CT data - Unique to each certificate order - The certificate’s public key, contained in `SubjectPublicKeyInfo` (SPKI), satisfies these requirements. - Cloudflare now stores `spki_sha256`, an SHA-256 hash of the DER-encoded SPKI. - The ordering service calculates and records this hash when generating the keypair. - Because Cloudflare creates a fresh keypair for each issuance, matching SPKI values reliably identify Cloudflare-managed certificates. ## How Alert Filtering Works - When the CT alerting service sees a certificate, it recomputes `spki_sha256` from the certificate’s public key. - If the hash exists in the ordering database, the certificate is recognized as Cloudflare-issued and the alert is suppressed. - If no match exists, the certificate is treated as external and an alert is sent. - The same key appears in both the pre-certificate and final certificate, eliminating ordering and timing problems. - Abandoned pre-certificates are also suppressed because they still match a recorded Cloudflare key. - Customer-uploaded certificates continue to generate alerts because Cloudflare did not create their keypairs. Cloudflare’s updated CT Monitoring reduces routine renewal noise while preserving warnings for certificates issued outside its systems, making the feature more useful for detecting genuine certificate mis-issuance.

cloudflaretls-certificatespublic-key-cryptographycertificate-transparency+3

cloudflareAug 11, 2026

Cloudflare DDoS Threat Report H1 2026: 1 Tbps attacks soar as DNS floods and geopolitical tensions drive a new wave (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare’s H1 2026 DDoS report shows a sharp rise in extreme attacks alongside a shift toward reflection and amplification techniques. Although most attacks remained brief and relatively small, 935 network-layer attacks exceeded 1 Tbps, making automated, always-on protection essential. Geopolitical events also strongly influenced which industries and countries were targeted. ## DDoS Activity Reached Record Levels - Cloudflare mitigated: - 23.2 million network-layer DDoS attacks - 29.64 trillion HTTP DDoS requests - This equals roughly 5,343 network-layer attacks per hour, or 128,000 per day. - April was the peak month, with 6.46 trillion requests and 165 petabytes of traffic. - Activity declined afterward, possibly following Operation PowerOFF, which targeted: - More than 75,000 DDoS-for-hire users - 53 domains - 25 search warrants - Four arrests across 21 countries ## Hyper-Volumetric Attacks Surge - Cloudflare mitigated 935 network-layer attacks exceeding 1 Tbps during H1. - Q2 alone accounted for 805 such attacks, more than six times Q1’s total. - Hyper-volumetric attacks are defined as exceeding: - 1 Tbps - 1 billion packets per second - 1 million requests per second ## Most Attacks Remained Short and Small - Despite record-breaking incidents: - 96.62% of network-layer attacks stayed below 500 Mbps. - 90.60% lasted less than 10 minutes. - Even “small” attacks can be damaging: - 100 Mbps can overwhelm an individual server or website. - 100 Gbps can disable most unprotected data centers. - Attacks above 1 Tbps can stress major infrastructure. - Attackers may combine high packet rates with lower bandwidth, or the reverse, to target different network weaknesses. - Some extreme attacks lasted only 35 seconds, leaving no realistic opportunity for manual intervention. - Short attacks can still cause prolonged routing instability, retransmissions, timeouts, and downstream outages. ## Media and Government Organizations Were Major Targets - Media, Production & Publishing was the most targeted industry in both quarters. - It represented 14.2% of mitigated HTTP DDoS requests. - Coverage of conflicts in Iran and Ukraine, along with the World Cup, contributed to sustained targeting. - Following Operation Epic Fury against Iran, government organizations experienced a major spike: - Researchers recorded 149 hacktivist DDoS claims against 110 organizations in 16 countries. - Nearly 47.8% of targeted organizations were in the government sector. - Government moved from 29th place in Q1 to 9th in Q2. ## China and Turkey Rose Among Targeted Locations - China was the most attacked location in Q2, receiving 22.4% of global HTTP DDoS requests. - The United States ranked second with 18.8%. - Turkey more than doubled its share of attack traffic and reached third place. - The increase coincided with security activity surrounding the 2026 Ankara NATO Summit. ## Brazil Became the Leading Attack Source - Brazil overtook the United States as the leading source country: - Brazil: 14.9% during H1, rising to 21.4% in Q2 - United States: 13.4% - Indonesia remained the third-largest source country. ## DNS and CLDAP Attacks Gained Ground - DNS-based attacks accounted for 34.3% of network-layer activity. - DNS Floods rose from 25.7% to 40.0% of network-layer attacks between Q1 and Q2. - DNS Floods directly overwhelm authoritative DNS servers with query volume. - DNS Amplification abuses open resolvers and spoofed source addresses to send larger responses to victims. - CLDAP Floods increased 580% quarter-over-quarter and became the third-most common vector in Q2. - These attacks exploit exposed LDAP-over-UDP endpoints, particularly those associated with Active Directory. - Overall, the attack landscape shifted from conventional botnet floods toward reflection and amplification methods. Cloudflare’s findings reinforce that DDoS defenses must be automated, distributed, and continuously active. Short attack durations and rapidly increasing traffic volumes make manual or on-demand mitigation too slow to protect services reliably.

cloudflarenetwork-securitydnsddos+3

cloudflareAug 10, 2026

Everything we launched during Agents Week (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare’s Agents Week presented agents as a new class of software requiring more than advanced models: they need runtimes, identity, orchestration, memory, observability, and security. Across five days, Cloudflare introduced infrastructure and tools for building, deploying, governing, and connecting agents to the web. The broader conclusion is that an “Agentic Internet” must support cooperation between humans and autonomous software while preserving control, trust, and openness. ## Agent Runtime and Infrastructure - Cloudflare introduced `@cloudflare/computer`, a runtime that lets agents select suitable computing environments rather than relying solely on containers. - Workers RPC now supports communication between Python and JavaScript Workers. - Cloudflare detailed efforts to run models such as Kimi and GLM more efficiently while maintaining quality, reliability, and safety. - The Billable Usage API provides programmatic access to Cloudflare product costs and usage. - Workers and Containers gained inbound TCP and gRPC support, enabling real-time applications such as voice AI backends. ## From Prototypes to Production with the ADLC - Cloudflare proposed the Agent Development Lifecycle (ADLC) as an evolution of the traditional Software Development Lifecycle for agent-based software. - Cloudflare Agents provide live run monitoring, tracing, replay, and human approval workflows. - Local tracing helps agents and developers debug Workers before deployment. - Cloudflare Wallets give agents programmable, secure capabilities for participating in transactions. - Programmable CI/CD pipelines can run across millions of repositories and use agents to diagnose failures and prepare fixes for review. - Cloudflare described internal AI-powered engineering workflows, including automated standards enforcement and an Astro software factory that reduced GitHub issue-management toil. ## Identity, Security, and Governance - The Agent Access Model defines how agents can access services and resources on behalf of users. - Cloudflare OS embeds AI into internal work while retaining security and human oversight, and its platform was open-sourced for building applications and automations. - Identity-aware analytics connect AI activity to users and systems, helping detect anomalous behavior and unexpected spending. - WriteGuard adds fine-grained controls to MCP servers to restrict dangerous or unwanted tool calls. ## Building an Agentic Internet - Cloudflare outlined an Internet that is readable, discoverable, callable, and payable, allowing publishers to control access while enabling agents to interact and transact. - WebMCP gives websites and web applications a simple interface that agents can discover and use. - Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) adapts SEO practices for content surfaced by AI agents. - Kitesurf is an agent-focused browser running in V8 isolates, prioritizing efficiency over pixel-perfect rendering. - MCPv2 simplifies the deployment and scaling of agentic applications. - Cloudflare AI Search turns websites and files into searchable, agent-ready data sources. ## Observing the Agent Ecosystem - Cloudflare argued that bot behavior should be evaluated through continuous trust rather than assuming bots are inherently harmful. - Workers AI and AI Gateway are being unified into a single AI control plane with one binding, wallet, and dashboard for model access. - New Cloudflare Ambassadors and Community Engineers programs support community leaders and open-source maintainers, alongside an additional $1 million in open-source funding. - Radar Researcher lets users explore Internet data through natural-language questions and interactive charts. Cloudflare’s vision is an Agent Cloud combining execution infrastructure, an increasingly automated development lifecycle, secure identity and access, agent-ready web protocols, and strong human communities. Building agents successfully will require treating them as participants in a broader computing ecosystem—not merely as model-powered features.

ai-agentci-cdmodel-context-protocolcloudflare-workers+4

cloudflareAug 10, 2026

Serving the most critical missions- Cloudflare for Government achieves FedRAMP Class D (High) Certified status (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare announced that Cloudflare for Government has achieved FedRAMP High (Class D) certification, enabling it to support highly sensitive federal workloads. The company is also using the systems built for FedRAMP High as the foundation for pursuing DoD Impact Level 4 authorization. Its core argument is that government agencies should receive the same modern capabilities as commercial customers without relying on isolated, outdated platforms. ## What FedRAMP High Represents - FedRAMP provides standardized security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for U.S. government cloud services. - Cloudflare previously achieved FedRAMP Moderate authorization in 2022. - FedRAMP High involves substantially stricter controls and addresses data where a breach could have catastrophic consequences. - High-impact workloads include law enforcement, emergency services, financial systems, and national security information. - The authorization was sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and verified by the FedRAMP Program Management Office. ## One Platform on a Global Network - Traditional public-sector technology platforms often use separate, isolated environments that fall behind commercial products. - Cloudflare instead runs the same software stack across its global network. - Its FedRAMP High offering uses the same underlying machines and services, with software-defined regional controls rather than a separate government cloud. - This allows federal customers to access current Zero Trust tools, application performance services, and developer features as they are released. ## Data Localization and Compliance - Cloudflare’s Data Localization Suite controls where traffic is processed and stored. - For FedRAMP High services, traffic inspection and processing can be restricted exclusively to U.S. data centers. - These software-defined controls allow Cloudflare to meet strict residency and handling requirements while retaining a unified global architecture. ## Path Toward DoD IL4 - Cloudflare designed its FedRAMP High systems with DoD Impact Level 4 requirements in mind. - DoD IL4 applies to systems handling controlled, unclassified information. - The company expects its existing compliance infrastructure to support the pursuit of IL4 authorization. - Cloudflare argues that this approach could help defense organizations adopt new security capabilities faster than release-isolated government clouds allow. Cloudflare presents FedRAMP High as more than a compliance milestone: it is a way to modernize federal infrastructure with Zero Trust security, DDoS protection, resilient services, and continuously updated technology.

cloudflarecloud-securityzero-trustfedramp+3

cloudflareAug 7, 2026

Unveiling good and bad behaviors on the Agentic Internet (opens in new tab)

The Internet contains a mix of human, automated, and hybrid traffic, so classifying visitors simply as “good humans” or “bad bots” no longer works. Cloudflare argues that website owners should evaluate continuous behavior and build trust over time, rather than rely only on isolated risk checks. Its strategy combines transparent bot classification through BotBase with behavioral detection through Precursor. ## Risk and Trust Are Different - **Risk** measures how likely a request or action is to be harmful, often based on a momentary event. - **Trust** develops over time through reputation and observed behavior. - A suspicious action should not automatically lead to rejection if the actor has an established, trustworthy identity. - Cloudflare’s goal is to create incentives for safer behavior, from blocking malicious activity to enabling beneficial automated participation. ## Verified Bots and Transparency - Cloudflare defines verified bots and agents through two requirements: - They honestly declare who they are. - They do not abuse the trust they receive. - Transparency helps site owners decide which behaviors and data uses to permit. - BotBase is designed as a directory of all known bots and agents, not just approved ones. - Actors that violate expectations can lose their verified status and become harder to trust across Cloudflare’s network. ## Continuous Detection with Precursor - Precursor is a client-side system that continuously analyzes behavior throughout a session. - Its JavaScript is injected at the CDN, so customers do not need to manually place or rerun detection code. - Unlike CAPTCHAs and other one-time challenges, Precursor evaluates behavior in context over multiple pages. - Continuous analysis makes it more expensive for bot developers to imitate human behavior across an entire session. ## What Cloudflare Has Observed - In a 24-hour snapshot, Precursor processed **206 million evaluation events across 73,438 zones**. - Suspicious behavior frequently begins in the middle of a session, meaning point-in-time checks can miss it. - A single session may shift between human and automated behavior, such as when a user hands part of a shopping journey to an agent. - Site owners therefore need classifications based on use case, purpose, and data usage rather than a simple human-versus-bot decision. ## Understanding Human Cursor Behavior - **Precursor Trace** is an interactive demonstration of part of Precursor’s detection process. - It examines cursor acceleration, corrections, rhythm, and movement texture. - The demo illustrates how behavioral signals can distinguish natural interaction from automated movement. ## Adaptive Intelligence - Cloudflare indicates that its bot detection engines will soon provide more adaptive outcomes for requests identified as automated. - The excerpt ends before detailing how this upcoming capability will work. Website owners should treat automation as a spectrum: verify transparent actors, monitor behavior continuously, and make decisions based on trust, intent, and use case rather than isolated signals.

cloudflarejavascriptagentic-aicdn+3

cloudflareAug 7, 2026

Announcing Cloudflare Ambassadors, Community Engineers, and another $1M in open-source funding (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare is launching an expanded community program to support people who help others build on and improve the Internet. The program has two tracks: Cloudflare Ambassadors, who grow local and online developer communities, and Cloudflare Community Engineers, who contribute to open-source projects. It also includes new funding, recognition, and improvements to Cloudflare’s growing Discord community. ## Cloudflare Ambassadors - Ambassadors bring Cloudflare into their own communities through: - Local events, meetups, hackathons, and workshops - Student groups and campus activities - Tutorials, online content, and peer support - Selected Ambassadors receive: - Event credits and marketing support - Technical resources - Greater visibility in Cloudflare’s online communities, including Discord - Ambassadors can serve for up to two years. - Applications are open through September 6, with selections announced by October 5. - Cloudflare highlights the program’s goal of helping developers—especially students overcome resource limitations and turn ideas into working products. ## Cloudflare Community Engineers - This track supports developers who maintain or contribute to open-source software that benefits the broader Internet. - Cloudflare is adding $1 million in funding over two years for grants to eligible contributors. - The initiative builds on previous investments, including: - Sponsorship of TanStack - A $1 million fund supporting the Vite community through VoidZero - Community Engineer appointments have no fixed maximum term, recognizing that open-source maintenance and major contributions do not fit neatly into annual cycles. - Initial focus areas include projects related to Cloudflare’s ecosystem, such as Astro, Agents SDK, EmDash, Hono, and Vinext. - Grants will become available through a later application process. ## Improving the Cloudflare Discord Community - Cloudflare’s Discord has grown to nearly 100,000 members since its launch in 2020. - A new Discord committee, including Ambassadors and Cloudflare staff, will focus on: - Improving discussions and community content - Connecting developers with Cloudflare experts - Organizing conversations and sessions with internal teams - Automated tools are being introduced to reduce spam, malicious links, and routine moderation work. - Cloudflare plans to open-source these Discord protection tools so other communities can use them. - The committee is intended to focus on meaningful community opportunities rather than administrative tasks. Cloudflare’s overall recommendation is to get involved through the new community program at **cloudflare.com/community**, whether by organizing developer communities or contributing to open-source projects.

discordcloudflareopen-sourcecloudflare-workers+4

cloudflareAug 7, 2026

Unifying Workers AI and AI Gateway into a single AI control plane (opens in new tab)

AI Gateway and Workers AI are converging into a unified control plane for accessing models across Cloudflare and external providers. A single Workers binding or REST API can now provide inference, observability, logging, security, and billing without requiring users to choose a product upfront. Cloudflare’s longer-term goal is model-first routing, where applications request capabilities or models while the gateway handles provider selection, failover, and load balancing. ## Unified Bindings and API - The Workers AI binding and AI Gateway now share the same entrypoint. - Requests can use the built-in `default` gateway or a named gateway for separate applications and customized policies. - The unified REST API routes requests through `/ai/` endpoints, using the `cf-aig-gateway-id` header. - This removes the need to decide between Workers AI and AI Gateway before building an application. ## Automatic Observability for Workers AI - Passing `default` as the gateway ID automatically creates an AI Gateway on the first authenticated request. - Requests receive built-in: - Full request and response logging - Token tracking by model - Cost attribution - Latency and error metrics - Developers can begin with the default gateway and later switch to a named gateway for features such as custom caching or application-specific traffic separation. - The AI Gateway dashboard provides detailed visibility into prompts, responses, latency, token usage, and failures. ## Unified Billing with AI Gateway Credits - AI Gateway credits can now pay for Workers AI usage in addition to providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. - Users can maintain one prepaid credit balance across supported providers. - Workers AI users who use unified billing receive elevated rate limits, subject to current Cloudflare policies and documentation. ## Model-First Routing - Cloudflare plans to route requests based on the desired model rather than requiring users to select a specific provider. - The gateway could handle: - Provider selection - Failover - Load balancing - Capacity management - For example, a request for a model such as Kimi K2.7 Code could be served by Workers AI, the model’s original provider, or another vetted provider hosting the same weights. - Applications could remain available if one provider is overloaded or unavailable. - Users will still be able to restrict traffic to a single provider when necessary. - Routing is intended to preserve requirements such as Zero Data Retention and maintain model quality. Cloudflare recommends using the unified binding or REST API with the default gateway to gain observability and centralized billing immediately. As model-first routing develops, applications can rely less on provider-specific infrastructure and gain greater resilience through automatic provider management.

observabilityrest-apiai-gatewayload-balancing+3

cloudflareAug 7, 2026

Introducing Radar Researcher: An AI tool for exploring Internet data in plain language (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare Radar Researcher is an AI-powered assistant that lets users explore Radar’s Internet data through natural-language questions. It replaces manual API queries, filters, and chart hunting with interactive visualizations, explanations, follow-up questions, and auditable analysis. The beta tool is designed for both casual users and technical researchers, while grounding responses in real data from Radar’s API. ## Why Cloudflare Built Radar Researcher - Cloudflare Radar publishes global Internet data covering: - DNS queries from the 1.1.1.1 resolver - HTTP traffic across Cloudflare’s network - Internet quality measurements from Cloudflare Speed Test - Network outages and other datasets - Radar serves a wide audience, from journalists and curious users to network operators and academics. - AI lowers the barrier to using complex datasets by allowing users to ask questions without knowing a dataset’s structure, terminology, or API. - The tool is especially useful for people working under time pressure, such as journalists investigating current Internet disruptions. ## Natural-Language Data Exploration - Radar Researcher is available from every Radar page in a docked panel. - Users can: - Ask questions in plain language. - Receive short answers or more detailed reports. - View real, interactive Radar charts alongside explanations. - Continue with suggested follow-up questions. - Use text, voice input, or Radar’s search bar. - Conversations are saved in searchable history, can be pinned, and can be shared through links that expire after 30 days. - Users can inspect how the assistant interpreted their question, which datasets it queried, and how it derived its answer. ## Explaining Existing Charts - An “Explain with AI” action lets users start a conversation from any Radar visualization. - The assistant receives: - A screenshot of the chart for visual context. - The exact underlying data from Radar’s API. - The current location, date range, and applied filters. - This combination lets the model explain the exact chart being viewed while preserving numerical accuracy and context. ## Example: Internet Quality in Portugal - A user can ask about home Internet quality in Portugal without manually selecting API parameters or searching Radar pages. - Researcher queries the Internet quality API and presents the results through familiar interactive charts. - Users can ask follow-up questions, such as comparing Portugal with Spain or another neighboring country. - The assistant can also suggest related investigations, including common Internet outages. ## Example: Investigating an Internet Shutdown - Researcher can support more open-ended investigations for engineers, researchers, journalists, and network operators. - For Iran’s 2026 government-directed shutdowns, it: - Retrieved recorded outage events. - Collected corresponding HTTP traffic data. - Explained the timeline in natural language. - The analysis described traffic falling from approximately 0.58 on January 7 to nearly zero by January 9, partially recovering around January 17, and approaching normal levels by January 27. - It displayed the findings as an annotated traffic chart and a table of outages, including another shutdown beginning February 28. - Suggested follow-ups included comparing Iran’s traffic with neighboring countries. ## Cloudflare’s Technical Implementation - The application runs entirely on Cloudflare’s developer platform. - A Cloudflare Worker uses the Cloudflare Agents SDK. - Each conversation is stored in a stateful Durable Object with its own SQLite database. - Chat history, titles, and streaming responses persist even if users leave the page during generation. - Workers AI runs open models, including Kimi K2.7. - An ordered fallback chain across three model families helps maintain availability if one model provider reaches capacity. - Requests are routed through AI Gateway. Radar Researcher makes Cloudflare’s extensive public datasets easier to use without sacrificing precision or transparency. It is particularly valuable when users need fast, context-specific analysis backed by interactive charts and verifiable source data.

llmcloudflare-workersdurable-objectssqlite+3

cloudflareAug 6, 2026

Building an open Agentic Internet: readable, discoverable, callable, and payable (opens in new tab)

Agents are becoming a new kind of web visitor: they fetch information, use tools, and make purchases on behalf of people, without rendering pages like traditional browsers. The post argues that the web must evolve into an “Agentic Internet” that is readable, discoverable, callable, and payable. Cloudflare advocates open standards and interoperable infrastructure so agents and website owners can cooperate rather than rely on closed platforms. ## Why the Web Must Adapt - Well-behaved bots are generating billions of requests for unchanged pages, wasting bandwidth, compute, and money. - Agents differ from conventional scrapers: - They act on behalf of paying humans or businesses. - Blocking them can mean blocking potential customers. - Treating them like ordinary scrapers prevents publishers from understanding legitimate demand. - Existing web infrastructure, analytics, and business models were designed for human visitors and pageviews, not programmatic interactions with specific outcomes. - The future could be controlled by a few platforms, or remain open through publicly implementable standards. ## Open Infrastructure for Agents - Cloudflare proposes an open ecosystem based on standards including: - **x402** for payments - **MCP** for agent tools and interactions - **Web Bot Auth** for cryptographic agent identity - **PACT** for privacy-preserving trust signals - Website owners can choose their own identity providers, payment processors, and agent partners. - Cloudflare positions itself as one participant in the infrastructure rather than a mandatory intermediary. ## Identity and Trust - **Web Bot Auth** allows agents to cryptographically identify themselves to websites instead of relying on spoofable `User-Agent` headers. - **Private Access Control Tokens (PACT)** let trusted sites anonymously vouch for agents. - These mechanisms can reduce friction for legitimate agents while giving publishers more control over access. ## Readable: Content Designed for Agents - **Markdown for Agents** provides content in a format that requires fewer tokens and less bandwidth than full human-oriented HTML. - Rendering CSS, images, advertisements, and other interface elements is wasteful when an agent only needs the underlying information. - Cloudflare’s **Kitesurf** browser is designed for agents, running on Workers per request and omitting unnecessary human-browser features. ## Discoverable: Helping Agents Find Resources - Agents need interfaces designed for machine-oriented discovery rather than conventional keyword search. - **AI Search** allows public websites to become searchable by agents. - **Agent Engine Optimization (AEO)** measures how visible a brand is across relevant AI models and agents. - Poor visibility to the agents customers use could effectively make a business invisible to those customers. ## Callable: Exposing Actions Directly - Human-oriented websites force agents to parse HTML, identify controls, and simulate clicks. - **WebMCP** lets websites expose explicit tools through the browser, including structured schemas and executable actions. - This removes the need for DOM guessing and makes interactions more reliable. - Tools run within the page, allowing them to reuse the user’s session and existing state. - **Code Mode** lets agents invoke tools by writing code, which can be faster and more precise than natural-language tool calls. - Direct endpoint usage also gives content owners clearer insight into which content and actions agents actually use. ## Payable: Building a Sustainable Economic Model - Advertising depends on pageviews, rendered ads, and human attention—none of which necessarily occur during agent interactions. - Seat-based pricing is also poorly suited to software agents acting for users. - Micropayments could allow publishers to charge for individual fetches or articles: - Recipe sites might charge fractions of a cent per request. - Newspapers could license articles at read time without requiring a separate subscription. - Agents could use wallets and budgets configured by their users. - Payment standards such as **x402** are presented as a foundation for direct transactions between agents and merchants. ## Practical Conclusion The Agentic Internet will succeed if agents can reliably identify themselves, read content efficiently, discover useful resources, invoke structured actions, and pay directly. Open standards and interoperable systems are preferable to a future where a small number of platforms control discovery, identity, and commerce.

cloudflare-workerswebmcpx402agentic-internet+2

cloudflareAug 6, 2026

Cloudflare AI Search: give your agents a search engine for your data (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare AI Search now automates the components previously needed to build a search system, including crawling, ingestion, embeddings, vector storage, and retrieval. The update adds sitemap-free website discovery, public and custom-domain endpoints, MCP support, and integrations such as EmDash. Cloudflare is also previewing predictable pricing by including embedding and reranking costs when using select default Workers AI models. ## Easier Data Indexing - AI Search can index structured and unstructured data, including files and websites. - Website sources currently must be owned or verified through a Cloudflare zone. - The new **Discover** parsing mode crawls sites without requiring a sitemap by following links, powered by Browser Run’s `/crawl`. - A single AI Search instance can ingest, embed, and retrieve content from a website or collection of sites. ## Unified Search Across Multiple Sources - Multiple AI Search instances can be grouped into a namespace and queried together. - Users can enable public URLs to receive: - `/search` for search requests - `/mcp` for Model Context Protocol integrations - These endpoints can search across multiple websites or instances without requiring authentication. - A Worker can also bind to a namespace and perform a single multi-instance search, with results tagged and cited by source. ## Custom Domains and Access Control - Public endpoints can use custom domains such as `search.example.com/mcp`. - Cloudflare Access can be placed in front of these domains to make search private. - This supports both easily shareable public search and authenticated search for authorized users or agents. ## Pricing Model - Cloudflare is previewing a predictable, scalable pricing model for AI Search. - Embedding and reranking are included at no additional cost when using select default models from the Workers AI catalog. - Customers therefore do not need to estimate token usage for those operations. ## Cloudflare Dev Stack MCP Cloudflare uses AI Search to power its Dev Stack MCP server, which provides coding agents with current, cited documentation. - Separate instances index Cloudflare Docs, Blog, API Docs, Community, Astro, Vite, Vitest, Hono, Replicate, and OpenNext. - These sources can be combined because Cloudflare owns the underlying website data. - A Worker-based MCP server searches all relevant instances in one call. - Search results include citations and identify the originating instance. - Users can alternatively enable public namespace endpoints without writing or deploying a Worker. - The MCP server can be added to an agent with a configuration such as: ```json { "mcpServers": { "dev-stack": { "url": "https://stack.mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp" } } } ``` ## Additional Integrations - Cloudflare’s Blog, Developer Docs, and Cloudflare.com use AI Search internally. - The open-source EmDash CMS has an AI Search plugin that adds semantic search to site content. - AI Search is also used in Cloudflare’s own MCP and documentation experiences. For an existing application or MCP server, the Worker binding offers the most flexibility. For a quick, shareable search service, public `/search` and `/mcp` endpoints provide a simpler deployment path, with custom domains and Cloudflare Access available for branding and security.

cloudflare-workersmcpembeddingscloudflare-access+4

cloudflareAug 6, 2026

From ranking to recommended: get your site ready to thrive in the age of AI agents (opens in new tab)

AI assistants are becoming a major channel through which customers discover, compare, and purchase from businesses. As agents replace traditional search journeys, discoverability increasingly depends on whether a site is easy for machines to access, understand, trust, and recommend. Cloudflare’s Agent Readiness and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) tools measure both technical accessibility and visibility in AI-generated recommendations. ## The Rise of the Agentic Audience - Fewer than half of HTML page requests reportedly come from humans, with the remainder including crawlers, bots, and increasingly capable agents. - Customers may ask AI assistants for: - Solutions to specific problems - Recommendations tailored to their needs - Comparisons between products or services - Actions performed on their behalf - Traditional metrics such as clicks and page views do not show whether AI systems can use a site or recommend it. - Agent-focused discoverability requires being found, read, and confidently cited by answer engines, shopping assistants, and research tools. ## Diagnostics: Measuring Agent Readiness Cloudflare’s Diagnostics feature evaluates a site from an agent’s perspective rather than simply loading its homepage. - It checks whether agents: - Are permitted to access the site - Can discover its content - Can retrieve clean, machine-readable content - Can identify callable interfaces and authentication methods - Diagnostic checks examine: - `robots.txt` - XML sitemaps - Response headers - Markdown content - Published metadata - APIs and agent-facing tools - Results are grouped into readiness levels from “Not Ready” to fully agent-native. - Each check returns: - Pass, fail, or neutral status - An explanation of its significance - Evidence showing the exact request and response ### Diagnostic Improvement Areas - **Quick wins:** Crawler-readable `robots.txt`, XML sitemaps, AI-crawler rules, and clean Markdown. - **Technical groundwork:** Content Signals, API catalogs, link headers, and agent login instructions. - **Advanced integration:** OAuth discovery, MCP, A2A agent cards, skills indexes, Web Bot Auth, and WebMCP. - **Commerce:** Emerging standards such as x402, ACP, UCP, and AP2. These are currently informational and do not affect the readiness score. - Recommended fixes either link directly to Cloudflare settings or generate a coding prompt that can be given to an agent. ## AEO: Measuring AI Recommendations Agent Readiness shows whether agents can access a site; AEO measures whether assistants actually recommend it. - Cloudflare infers a site’s industry and category, then tests likely customer prompts against assistants such as Claude and GPT. - Prompts cover recommendations, product comparisons, and general category advice without naming the customer’s brand. - AEO reports several visibility metrics: - **Citation Rate:** How often the site is cited as a source. - **Prominence:** How early and substantially the site appears in an answer. - **Mention Rate:** How often the brand is named, even without a source citation. - **Share of Voice:** The site’s share of citations compared with competitors. - Comparing mention and citation rates distinguishes brand awareness from authoritative attribution. ## Category Benchmarks and Industry Fit Cloudflare builds a benchmark for each industry and category before scoring individual sites. - AI assistants are queried with representative prompts to identify: - Which sites are cited - Where citations appear - How prominently each brand is represented - The benchmark is reused across accounts in the same category rather than regenerated for every scan. - This approach provides: - Instant result loading - Lower AI-compute costs - An **Industry Fit** score showing whether the site appears alongside its real competitors ## Multimodel Evaluation Because AI responses vary, Cloudflare queries assistants multiple times across different models using AI Gateway. - The system analyzes the actual answer text and cited sources customers would see. - Workers AI evaluates citation and mention patterns on Cloudflare’s infrastructure. - Exact text analysis is used alongside model-based judgment, rather than asking a model to grade its own response. - The process converts many variable responses into consistent, actionable metrics without requiring site owners to build their own evaluation framework. ## Operator Activity Cloudflare also reports real crawl and referral activity from AI operators. - Activity is shown by operator, including OpenAI and Google. - Site owners can see: - Which operators read their content - Which operators send visitors back - Errors encountered during crawling, such as `403` blocks and `404` links The broader goal is to connect controlled AEO benchmarks with real-world agent traffic, helping businesses understand both how AI systems perceive them and whether those systems can successfully access and use their sites. Businesses should treat agents as a core audience: first make the site technically accessible and machine-readable, then measure whether AI assistants cite and recommend it. Acting early may provide an advantage because most websites are not yet optimized for agent discovery.

cloudflaremodel-context-protocoloauthai-gateway+4

cloudflareAug 6, 2026

The next generation of MCP (opens in new tab)

MCP’s latest specification makes the protocol fully stateless, removing the session management and persistent connections that complicated remote deployments. Requests now carry the information they need, enabling MCP servers to run on simpler request-scoped infrastructure such as serverless Workers. The update also redesigns elicitation, improves HTTP observability, and strengthens authorization practices. ## MCP Becomes Stateless - Earlier MCP implementations required an `initialize`/`initialized` handshake and an `Mcp-Session-Id` for subsequent requests. - Stateful sessions created operational challenges: - Sticky-session routing - Open-stream management - Session migration during deployments - Reconnection problems when instances disappeared - The new protocol removes: - The mandatory handshake - `Mcp-Session-Id` - Protocol sessions from the core request path - Each request includes its protocol version, client identity, and capabilities. - `server/discover` is available for optional server inspection. - MCP servers can now execute a request and return its result without storing protocol state. - Cloudflare’s `McpAgent` is no longer required for MCP itself; developers can use `createMcpHandler` and deploy on Workers. - Durable Objects remain useful when the application—not MCP—requires state, persistence, or real-time coordination. ## Elicitation Uses Multi Round-Trip Requests - Elicitation allows servers to request additional information or approval, such as confirming a deployment or refund. - Previously, `elicitation/create` depended on an open stream, adding timeout, scaling, and infrastructure complexity. - The new Multi Round-Trip Request model works as follows: - The server returns an `input_required` result. - The client gathers the user’s response. - The client retries the operation with the requested input. - This is a breaking change from the previous approach but removes the need to preserve a transport session. ## HTTP Infrastructure Can Inspect MCP Requests - Streamable HTTP requests now include `Mcp-Method` and `Mcp-Name` headers. - Gateways, rate limiters, and web application firewalls can identify operations such as `tools/call` without parsing JSON-RPC bodies. - Operators can apply method-specific policies and collect tool-level metrics using standard HTTP infrastructure. - Results from `tools/list`, `prompts/list`, `resources/list`, and `resources/read` can include: - `ttlMs` hints - `cacheScope` hints - Deterministically ordered tool catalogs help clients reuse results and maintain stable prompt caches. ## Authorization Continues to Evolve - The specification prioritizes authorization approaches in this order: - Pre-registered clients when an established relationship exists - Client ID Metadata Documents (CIMD) for dynamic registration - Dynamic Client Registration (DCR) as a fallback - DCR is deprecated for new implementations, although the provided text ends before describing the full authorization changes. The new MCP specification significantly reduces deployment complexity by making the protocol request-oriented rather than session-oriented. Developers should migrate from `McpAgent` to `createMcpHandler` where application state is unnecessary, adopt MRTR for elicitation, and update HTTP and authorization integrations to use the new headers and registration guidance.

model-context-protocolcloudflare-workersdurable-objectsjson-rpc+2