How to integrate Everhour MCP with CrewAI

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Everhour to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Everhour agent that can list all clients for this workspace, retrieve expense categories for new report, get my everhour user profile details, list all expenses from last quarter through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Everhour account through Composio's Everhour MCP server.

Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:
  • Get a Composio API key and configure your Everhour connection
  • Set up CrewAI with an MCP enabled agent
  • Create a Tool Router session or standalone MCP server for Everhour
  • Build a conversational loop where your agent can execute Everhour operations

What is CrewAI?

CrewAI is a powerful framework for building multi-agent AI systems. It provides primitives for defining agents with specific roles, creating tasks, and orchestrating workflows through crews.

Key features include:

  • Agent Roles: Define specialized agents with specific goals and backstories
  • Task Management: Create tasks with clear descriptions and expected outputs
  • Crew Orchestration: Combine agents and tasks into collaborative workflows
  • MCP Integration: Connect to external tools through Model Context Protocol

What is the Everhour MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Everhour MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Everhour account. It provides structured and secure access to your time tracking, client, and expense data, so your agent can perform actions like listing clients, retrieving expenses, managing projects, and fetching user profiles on your behalf.

  • Comprehensive client management: Ask your agent to list, create, or delete clients to keep your workspace organized and up-to-date.
  • Expense tracking and review: Effortlessly retrieve all expenses or list available expense categories to monitor spending and streamline expense management.
  • Project and section insights: Have your agent fetch detailed information about specific projects or sections using their IDs for better resource planning.
  • Personalized user profile access: Enable your agent to fetch the authenticated user's profile for quick access to account details and preferences.
  • Webhook configuration overview: List all configured webhooks to monitor integrations and automate notifications within your Everhour environment.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Create ClientTool to create a new client in everhour.
Delete a clientTool to delete a client.
List ClientsTool to list all clients.
List ExpensesTool to retrieve all expenses.
Get Client by IDTool to retrieve a specific client by id.
Get ProjectTool to retrieve a specific project.
Get SectionTool to retrieve a specific section.
Get Authenticated User ProfileTool to retrieve profile information of the authenticated user.
List Expense CategoriesTool to list all expense categories.
List WebhooksTool to list all webhooks.
List InvoicesTool to list all invoices.
List all projectsTool to list all projects.
List SectionsTool to list sections within a project.
List TagsTool to list all tags.
List Team MembersTool to list all team members.
List TeamsTool to list all teams.
Create ProjectTool to create a new project in everhour.
Delete a projectTool to delete a project.
Create SectionTool to create a new section in a project.
Delete a sectionTool to delete a section.
Create TaskTool to create a new task in a project.
Start TimerTool to start a new timer for a task.
Update ClientTool to update an existing client.
Update an existing projectTool to update an existing project.

What is the Composio tool router, and how does it fit here?

What is Tool Router?

Composio's Tool Router helps agents find the right tools for a task at runtime. You can plug in multiple toolkits (like Gmail, HubSpot, and GitHub), and the agent will identify the relevant app and action to complete multi-step workflows. This can reduce token usage and improve the reliability of tool calls. Read more here: Getting started with Tool Router

The tool router generates a secure MCP URL that your agents can access to perform actions.

How the Tool Router works

The Tool Router follows a three-phase workflow:

  1. Discovery: Searches for tools matching your task and returns relevant toolkits with their details.
  2. Authentication: Checks for active connections. If missing, creates an auth config and returns a connection URL via Auth Link.
  3. Execution: Executes the action using the authenticated connection.

Step-by-step Guide

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:
  • Python 3.9 or higher
  • A Composio account and API key
  • A Everhour connection authorized in Composio
  • An OpenAI API key for the CrewAI LLM
  • Basic familiarity with Python

Getting API Keys for OpenAI and Composio

OpenAI API Key
  • Go to the OpenAI dashboard and create an API key. You'll need credits to use the models, or you can connect to another model provider.
  • Keep the API key safe.
Composio API Key
  • Log in to the Composio dashboard.
  • Navigate to your API settings and generate a new API key.
  • Store this key securely as you'll need it for authentication.

Install dependencies

bash
pip install composio crewai crewai-tools python-dotenv
What's happening:
  • composio connects your agent to Everhour via MCP
  • crewai provides Agent, Task, Crew, and LLM primitives
  • crewai-tools includes MCP helpers
  • python-dotenv loads environment variables from .env

Set up environment variables

bash
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_composio_api_key_here
USER_ID=your_user_id_here
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key_here

Create a .env file in your project root.

What's happening:

  • COMPOSIO_API_KEY authenticates with Composio
  • USER_ID scopes the session to your account
  • OPENAI_API_KEY lets CrewAI use your chosen OpenAI model

Import dependencies

python
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, LLM
from crewai_tools import MCPServerAdapter  # optional import if you plan to adapt tools
from composio import Composio
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os
from crewai.mcp import MCPServerHTTP

load_dotenv()
What's happening:
  • CrewAI classes define agents and tasks, and run the workflow
  • MCPServerHTTP connects the agent to an MCP endpoint
  • Composio will give you a short lived Everhour MCP URL

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Everhour

python
composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
session = composio.create(
    user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
    toolkits=["everhour"],
)
url = session.mcp.url
What's happening:
  • You create a Everhour only session through Composio
  • Composio returns an MCP HTTP URL that exposes Everhour tools

Configure the LLM

python
llm = LLM(
    model="gpt-5-mini",
    api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
)
What's happening:
  • CrewAI will call this LLM for planning and responses
  • You can swap in a different model if needed

Attach the MCP server and create the agent

python
toolkit_agent = Agent(
    role="Everhour Assistant",
    goal="Help users interact with Everhour through natural language commands",
    backstory=(
        "You are an expert assistant with access to Everhour tools. "
        "You can perform various Everhour operations on behalf of the user."
    ),
    mcps=[
        MCPServerHTTP(
            url=url,
            streamable=True,
            cache_tools_list=True,
            headers={"x-api-key": os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")},
        ),
    ],
    llm=llm,
    verbose=True,
    max_iter=10,
)
What's happening:
  • MCPServerHTTP connects the agent to the Everhour MCP endpoint
  • cache_tools_list saves a tools catalog for faster subsequent runs
  • verbose helps you see what the agent is doing

Add a REPL loop with Task and Crew

python
print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n")
print("Try asking the agent to perform Everhour operations.\n")

conversation_context = ""

while True:
    user_input = input("You: ").strip()

    if user_input.lower() in ["exit", "quit", "bye"]:
        print("\nGoodbye!")
        break

    if not user_input:
        continue

    conversation_context += f"\nUser: {user_input}\n"
    print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

    task = Task(
        description=(
            f"Based on the conversation history:\n{conversation_context}\n\n"
            f"Current user request: {user_input}\n\n"
            f"Please help the user with their Everhour related request."
        ),
        expected_output="A helpful response addressing the user's request",
        agent=toolkit_agent,
    )

    crew = Crew(
        agents=[toolkit_agent],
        tasks=[task],
        verbose=False,
    )

    result = crew.kickoff()
    response = str(result)

    conversation_context += f"Agent: {response}\n"
    print(f"Agent: {response}\n")
What's happening:
  • You build a simple chat loop and keep a running context
  • Each user turn becomes a Task handled by the same agent
  • Crew executes the task and returns a response

Run the application

python
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
What's happening:
  • Standard Python entry point so you can run python crewai_everhour_agent.py

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Everhour and CrewAI:

python
# file: crewai_everhour_agent.py
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, LLM
from crewai_tools import MCPServerAdapter  # optional
from composio import Composio
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os
from crewai.mcp import MCPServerHTTP

load_dotenv()

def main():
    # Initialize Composio and create a Everhour session
    composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
        toolkits=["everhour"],
    )
    url = session.mcp.url

    # Configure LLM
    llm = LLM(
        model="gpt-5-mini",
        api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
    )

    # Create Everhour assistant agent
    toolkit_agent = Agent(
        role="Everhour Assistant",
        goal="Help users interact with Everhour through natural language commands",
        backstory=(
            "You are an expert assistant with access to Everhour tools. "
            "You can perform various Everhour operations on behalf of the user."
        ),
        mcps=[
            MCPServerHTTP(
                url=url,
                streamable=True,
                cache_tools_list=True,
                headers={"x-api-key": os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")},
            ),
        ],
        llm=llm,
        verbose=True,
        max_iter=10,
    )

    print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end the conversation.\n")
    print("Try asking the agent to perform Everhour operations.\n")

    conversation_context = ""

    while True:
        user_input = input("You: ").strip()

        if user_input.lower() in ["exit", "quit", "bye"]:
            print("\nGoodbye!")
            break

        if not user_input:
            continue

        conversation_context += f"\nUser: {user_input}\n"
        print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

        task = Task(
            description=(
                f"Based on the conversation history:\n{conversation_context}\n\n"
                f"Current user request: {user_input}\n\n"
                f"Please help the user with their Everhour related request."
            ),
            expected_output="A helpful response addressing the user's request",
            agent=toolkit_agent,
        )

        crew = Crew(
            agents=[toolkit_agent],
            tasks=[task],
            verbose=False,
        )

        result = crew.kickoff()
        response = str(result)

        conversation_context += f"Agent: {response}\n"
        print(f"Agent: {response}\n")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Conclusion

You now have a CrewAI agent connected to Everhour through Composio's Tool Router. The agent can perform Everhour operations through natural language commands. Next steps:
  • Add role-specific instructions to customize agent behavior
  • Plug in more toolkits for multi-app workflows
  • Chain tasks for complex multi-step operations

How to build Everhour MCP Agent with another framework

FAQ

What are the differences in Tool Router MCP and Everhour MCP?

With a standalone Everhour MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Everhour tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Everhour and many other apps based on the task at hand, all through a single MCP endpoint.

Can I use Tool Router MCP with CrewAI?

Yes, you can. CrewAI fully supports MCP integration. You get structured tool calling, message history handling, and model orchestration while Tool Router takes care of discovering and serving the right Everhour tools.

Can I manage the permissions and scopes for Everhour while using Tool Router?

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Everhour scopes and actions are allowed when connecting your account to Composio. You can also bring your own OAuth credentials or API configuration so you keep full control over what the agent can do.

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?

All sensitive data such as tokens, keys, and configuration is fully encrypted at rest and in transit. Composio is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and follows strict security practices so your Everhour data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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