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Sub catalogs

Sub catalogs enable sharing private catalogs with other organizations. This is useful when distributing internal MCP tools to partners, customers, or other teams within a company that operate as separate Gram organizations.

The peered organization model

Section titled “The peered organization model”

Gram uses a super/sub organization model to manage cross-organization catalog sharing:

  • The super organization owns the catalog and controls who can access it
  • A sub organization is granted access to specific catalogs from the super organization
Super Organization
├── Catalog: "customer-success"
├── Catalog: "data-platform"
│
├── Peer: Sub Org A  →  granted: "customer-success"
└── Peer: Sub Org B  →  granted: "customer-success", "data-platform"

When a sub organization is granted access to a catalog, the catalog MCP servers appear alongside its own registries. From the sub organization’s perspective, these shared catalogs are sub catalogs — read-only collections of tools provided by the parent organization.

Setting up sub catalogs

Section titled “Setting up sub catalogs”

Step 1: Create a peer relationship

Section titled “Step 1: Create a peer relationship”

Before sharing catalogs, establish a peer relationship with the target organization. In the Gram dashboard:

  • Navigate to Settings
  • Under the Peers section, click Add Peer
  • Enter the sub organization ID to create the relationship

Permissions

Only the super organization can create peer relationships. The sub organization does not need to approve the peering — but no catalogs are visible until access is explicitly granted.

Step 2: Grant catalog access

Section titled “Step 2: Grant catalog access”

Once a peer relationship exists, grant the sub organization access to specific catalogs:

  • Navigate to Catalogs and select the catalog to share
  • Under Access, click Grant Access
  • Select the peered organization from the list

The sub organization will now see this catalog in its registry list and can browse the MCP servers.

Step 3: Sub organization connects to catalog servers

Section titled “Step 3: Sub organization connects to catalog servers”

From the sub organization dashboard, the granted catalog appears in the Catalogs view. From there:

  • Browse the available MCP servers in the catalog
  • View server details including available tools and descriptions
  • Connect to servers using the standard MCP client configuration

Managing access

Section titled “Managing access”

Revoking access

Section titled “Revoking access”

To remove a sub organization’s access to a catalog:

  • Navigate to the catalog in the dashboard
  • Under Access, find the organization and click Revoke

The sub organization will immediately lose access to the catalog MCP servers.

Removing a peer relationship

Section titled “Removing a peer relationship”

Deleting a peer relationship automatically revokes all catalog grants for that sub organization. Navigate to Settings > Peers and remove the peer.

How sub catalog resolution works

Section titled “How sub catalog resolution works”

When a sub organization lists available registries, Gram combines:

  • Own registries — any external MCP registries configured by the organization
  • Own catalogs — any internal catalogs published by the organization
  • Granted sub catalogs — catalogs shared by super organizations through peering

This merged view means sub organizations can seamlessly use tools from their own projects alongside tools shared by partner organizations.

Read-only access

Sub organizations cannot modify catalogs shared with them. They can only browse and connect to the MCP servers within. To change the toolsets in a shared catalog, the super organization must update the catalog.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”