How to integrate Helpdesk MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Helpdesk to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Helpdesk agent that can list all agents available for support, show all active canned responses for tickets, retrieve contact details for a specific customer, list all teams handling support tickets through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your OpenAI Agents SDK agent real control over a Helpdesk account through Composio's Helpdesk 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 and set up your OpenAI and Composio API keys
  • Install the necessary dependencies
  • Initialize Composio and create a Tool Router session for Helpdesk
  • Configure an AI agent that can use Helpdesk as a tool
  • Run a live chat session where you can ask the agent to perform Helpdesk operations

What is open-ai-agents-sdk?

The OpenAI Agents SDK is a lightweight framework for building AI agents that can use tools and maintain conversation state. It provides a simple interface for creating agents with hosted MCP tool support.

Key features include:

  • Hosted MCP Tools: Connect to external services through hosted MCP endpoints
  • SQLite Sessions: Persist conversation history across interactions
  • Simple API: Clean interface with Agent, Runner, and tool configuration
  • Streaming Support: Real-time response streaming for interactive applications

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

The Helpdesk MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Helpdesk account. It provides structured and secure access to your ticketing system, so your agent can perform actions like listing support agents, managing contacts, retrieving canned responses, and reviewing automation rules on your behalf.

  • Agent and team management: Instantly list all support agents and teams in your Helpdesk account, making it easy to organize and delegate customer inquiries.
  • Contact and subscription retrieval: Pull up detailed contact lists and subscription information so your agent always has up-to-date customer and account data at hand.
  • Canned response access: Let your agent fetch and suggest predefined reply templates, ensuring fast and consistent communication with customers.
  • Rules and automation overview: Review all configured automation rules in your helpdesk, helping your agent stay aligned with your business processes and ticketing workflows.
  • Account configuration insights: Retrieve lists of custom fields, reply addresses, licenses, and email domains to support personalized automation and account management tasks.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
List AgentsTool to list agents.
List Canned ResponsesTool to list canned responses.
List ContactsTool to list contacts.
List Custom FieldsTool to list all custom fields defined in the account.
List Email DomainsTool to list email domains configured for the account.
List LicensesTool to list all licenses for an account.
List Reply AddressesTool to retrieve reply addresses.
List RulesTool to retrieve a list of rules configured in the account.
List SubscriptionsTool to list subscriptions.
List TeamsTool to list all teams for the authenticated Helpdesk account.
List TicketsTool to list tickets with cursor-based pagination.
List Trusted EmailsTool to retrieve a list of trusted email addresses or domains.
List ViewsTool to list agent views.
List WebhooksTool to list all webhooks configured for events.
View AgentTool to retrieve details of a specific agent (v1).

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:
  • Composio API Key and OpenAI API Key
  • Primary know-how of OpenAI Agents SDK
  • A live Helpdesk project
  • Some knowledge of Python or Typescript

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

Install dependencies

pip install composio_openai_agents openai-agents python-dotenv

Install the Composio SDK and the OpenAI Agents SDK.

Set up environment variables

bash
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...your-api-key
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your-api-key
USER_ID=composio_user@gmail.com

Create a .env file and add your OpenAI and Composio API keys.

Import dependencies

import asyncio
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

from composio import Composio
from composio_openai_agents import OpenAIAgentsProvider
from agents import Agent, Runner, HostedMCPTool, SQLiteSession
What's happening:
  • You're importing all necessary libraries.
  • The Composio and OpenAIAgentsProvider classes are imported to connect your OpenAI agent to Composio tools like Helpdesk.

Set up the Composio instance

load_dotenv()

api_key = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")
user_id = os.getenv("USER_ID")

if not api_key:
    raise RuntimeError("COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set. Create a .env file with COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_key")

# Initialize Composio
composio = Composio(api_key=api_key, provider=OpenAIAgentsProvider())
What's happening:
  • load_dotenv() loads your .env file so OPENAI_API_KEY and COMPOSIO_API_KEY are available as environment variables.
  • Creating a Composio instance using the API Key and OpenAIAgentsProvider class.

Create a Tool Router session

# Create a Helpdesk Tool Router session
session = composio.create(
    user_id=user_id,
    toolkits=["helpdesk"]
)

mcp_url = session.mcp.url

What is happening:

  • You give the Tool Router the user id and the toolkits you want available. Here, it is only helpdesk.
  • The router checks the user's Helpdesk connection and prepares the MCP endpoint.
  • The returned session.mcp.url is the MCP URL that your agent will use to access Helpdesk.
  • This approach keeps things lightweight and lets the agent request Helpdesk tools only when needed during the conversation.

Configure the agent

# Configure agent with MCP tool
agent = Agent(
    name="Assistant",
    model="gpt-5",
    instructions=(
        "You are a helpful assistant that can access Helpdesk. "
        "Help users perform Helpdesk operations through natural language."
    ),
    tools=[
        HostedMCPTool(
            tool_config={
                "type": "mcp",
                "server_label": "tool_router",
                "server_url": mcp_url,
                "headers": {"x-api-key": api_key},
                "require_approval": "never",
            }
        )
    ],
)
What's happening:
  • We're creating an Agent instance with a name, model (gpt-5), and clear instructions about its purpose.
  • The agent's instructions tell it that it can access Helpdesk and help with queries, inserts, updates, authentication, and fetching database information.
  • The tools array includes a HostedMCPTool that connects to the MCP server URL we created earlier.
  • The headers dict includes the Composio API key for secure authentication with the MCP server.
  • require_approval: 'never' means the agent can execute Helpdesk operations without asking for permission each time, making interactions smoother.

Start chat loop and handle conversation

print("\nComposio Tool Router session created.")

chat_session = SQLiteSession("conversation_openai_toolrouter")

print("\nChat started. Type your requests below.")
print("Commands: 'exit', 'quit', or 'q' to end\n")

async def main():
    try:
        result = await Runner.run(
            agent,
            "What can you help me with?",
            session=chat_session
        )
        print(f"Assistant: {result.final_output}\n")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error: {e}\n")

    while True:
        user_input = input("You: ").strip()
        if user_input.lower() in {"exit", "quit", "q"}:
            print("Goodbye!")
            break

        result = await Runner.run(
            agent,
            user_input,
            session=chat_session
        )
        print(f"Assistant: {result.final_output}\n")

asyncio.run(main())
What's happening:
  • The program prints a session URL that you visit to authorize Helpdesk.
  • After authorization, the chat begins.
  • Each message you type is processed by the agent using Runner.run().
  • The responses are printed to the console, and conversations are saved locally using SQLite.
  • Typing exit, quit, or q cleanly ends the chat.

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Helpdesk and open-ai-agents-sdk:

import asyncio
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

from composio import Composio
from composio_openai_agents import OpenAIAgentsProvider
from agents import Agent, Runner, HostedMCPTool, SQLiteSession

load_dotenv()

api_key = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")
user_id = os.getenv("USER_ID")

if not api_key:
    raise RuntimeError("COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set. Create a .env file with COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_key")

# Initialize Composio
composio = Composio(api_key=api_key, provider=OpenAIAgentsProvider())

# Create Tool Router session
session = composio.create(
    user_id=user_id,
    toolkits=["helpdesk"]
)
mcp_url = session.mcp.url

# Configure agent with MCP tool
agent = Agent(
    name="Assistant",
    model="gpt-5",
    instructions=(
        "You are a helpful assistant that can access Helpdesk. "
        "Help users perform Helpdesk operations through natural language."
    ),
    tools=[
        HostedMCPTool(
            tool_config={
                "type": "mcp",
                "server_label": "tool_router",
                "server_url": mcp_url,
                "headers": {"x-api-key": api_key},
                "require_approval": "never",
            }
        )
    ],
)

print("\nComposio Tool Router session created.")

chat_session = SQLiteSession("conversation_openai_toolrouter")

print("\nChat started. Type your requests below.")
print("Commands: 'exit', 'quit', or 'q' to end\n")

async def main():
    try:
        result = await Runner.run(
            agent,
            "What can you help me with?",
            session=chat_session
        )
        print(f"Assistant: {result.final_output}\n")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error: {e}\n")

    while True:
        user_input = input("You: ").strip()
        if user_input.lower() in {"exit", "quit", "q"}:
            print("Goodbye!")
            break

        result = await Runner.run(
            agent,
            user_input,
            session=chat_session
        )
        print(f"Assistant: {result.final_output}\n")

asyncio.run(main())

Conclusion

This was a starter code for integrating Helpdesk MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK to build a functional AI agent that can interact with Helpdesk.

Key features:

  • Hosted MCP tool integration through Composio's Tool Router
  • SQLite session persistence for conversation history
  • Simple async chat loop for interactive testing
You can extend this by adding more toolkits, implementing custom business logic, or building a web interface around the agent.

How to build Helpdesk MCP Agent with another framework

Claude Agent SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Use Helpdesk MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Google ADK

Google ADK

Use Helpdesk MCP with Google ADK

LangChain

LangChain

Use Helpdesk MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Vercel AI SDK

Use Helpdesk MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

Mastra AI

Use Helpdesk MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

LlamaIndex

Use Helpdesk MCP with LlamaIndex

CrewAI

CrewAI

Use Helpdesk MCP with CrewAI

FAQ

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

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

Can I use Tool Router MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK?

Yes, you can. OpenAI Agents SDK 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 Helpdesk tools.

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

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Helpdesk 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 Helpdesk data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

Used by agents from

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Context
ASU
Letta
glean
HubSpot
Agent.ai
Altera
DataStax
Entelligence
Rolai
Context
ASU
Letta
glean
HubSpot
Agent.ai
Altera
DataStax
Entelligence
Rolai

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