How to integrate Intercom MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Intercom to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Intercom agent that can add tag 'vip' to contact john doe, assign open conversation #123 to support team, create note for contact emily about refund, close all resolved conversations from today through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your OpenAI Agents SDK agent real control over a Intercom account through Composio's Intercom 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 Intercom
  • Configure an AI agent that can use Intercom as a tool
  • Run a live chat session where you can ask the agent to perform Intercom 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 Intercom MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Intercom MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Intercom account. It provides structured and secure access to your customer engagement platform, so your agent can perform actions like managing conversations, tagging contacts, creating articles, and updating company records on your behalf.

  • Conversation management and assignment: Let your agent assign conversations to teams or admins, create new conversations, and close them when resolved, streamlining your support workflow.
  • Contact tagging and note creation: Effortlessly tag contacts with relevant labels or add detailed notes for context, making customer follow-ups more organized and actionable.
  • Automated company and contact updates: Enable your agent to attach contacts to companies, create or update company records, and keep your Intercom data clean and up to date.
  • Article and collection creation: Let your agent publish new articles or create help center collections to expand your self-serve support resources without manual effort.
  • Subscription and message preferences management: Allow your agent to add or manage subscriptions for contacts, helping you personalize communication and respect user preferences automatically.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Add subscription to a contactYou can add a specific subscription to a contact.
Add tag to a contactYou can tag a specific contact.
Assign conversationAssigns a conversation to a specific admin or team in intercom
Attach a contact to a companyYou can attach a company to a single contact.
Close conversationCloses a conversation in intercom, marking it as resolved
Create a collectionYou can create a new collection by making a post request to `https://api.
Create an articleYou can create a new article by making a post request to `https://api.
Create a noteYou can add a note to a single contact.
Create conversationCreates a new conversation in intercom
Create or update a companyYou can create or update a company.
Delete a collectionYou can delete a single collection by making a delete request to `https://api.
Delete a companyYou can delete a single company.
Delete a contactYou can delete a single contact.
Delete an articleYou can delete a single article by making a delete request to `https://api.
Detach a contact from a companyYou can detach a company from a single contact.
Get a contactYou can fetch the details of a single contact.
Get conversationRetrieves a specific conversation by id with all messages and details
Identify an adminYou can view the currently authorised admin along with the embedded app object (a "workspace" in legacy terminology).
List all activity logsYou can get a log of activities by all admins in an app.
List all adminsYou can fetch a list of admins for a given workspace.
List all articlesYou can fetch a list of all articles by making a get request to `https://api.
List all collectionsYou can fetch a list of all collections by making a get request to `https://api.
List all companiesYou can list companies.
List all help centersYou can list all help centers by making a get request to `https://api.
List all notesYou can fetch a list of notes that are associated to a contact.
List attached companies for contactYou can fetch a list of companies that are associated to a contact.
List attached contactsYou can fetch a list of all contacts that belong to a company.
List attached segments for companiesYou can fetch a list of all segments that belong to a company.
List attached segments for contactYou can fetch a list of segments that are associated to a contact.
List conversationsLists conversations from intercom with filtering and pagination support
List subscriptions for a contactYou can fetch a list of subscription types that are attached to a contact.
List tags attached to a contactYou can fetch a list of all tags that are attached to a specific contact.
Merge a lead and a userYou can merge a contact with a `role` of `lead` into a contact with a `role` of `user`.
Remove subscription from a contactYou can remove a specific subscription from a contact.
Remove tag from a contactYou can remove tag from a specific contact.
Reopen conversationReopens a closed conversation in intercom
Reply to conversationSends a reply to an existing conversation in intercom
Retrieve a collectionYou can fetch the details of a single collection by making a get request to `https://api.
Retrieve a company by idYou can fetch a single company.
Retrieve a help centerYou can fetch the details of a single help center by making a get request to `https://api.
Retrieve an adminYou can retrieve the details of a single admin.
Retrieve an articleYou can fetch the details of a single article by making a get request to `https://api.
Retrieve companiesYou can fetch a single company by passing in `company id` or `name`.
Scroll over all companiesThe `list all companies` functionality does not work well for huge datasets, and can result in errors and performance problems when paging deeply.
Search conversationsSearches for conversations using query string with support for filtering and sorting
Search for articlesYou can search for articles by making a get request to `https://api.
Set an admin to awayYou can set an admin as away for the inbox.
Update a collectionYou can update the details of a single collection by making a put request to `https://api.
Update a companyYou can update a single company using the intercom provisioned `id`.
Update a contactYou can update an existing contact (ie.
Update an articleYou can update the details of a single article by making a put request to `https://api.

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 Intercom 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 Intercom.

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 Intercom Tool Router session
session = composio.create(
    user_id=user_id,
    toolkits=["intercom"]
)

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 intercom.
  • The router checks the user's Intercom connection and prepares the MCP endpoint.
  • The returned session.mcp.url is the MCP URL that your agent will use to access Intercom.
  • This approach keeps things lightweight and lets the agent request Intercom 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 Intercom. "
        "Help users perform Intercom 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 Intercom 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 Intercom 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 Intercom.
  • 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 Intercom 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=["intercom"]
)
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 Intercom. "
        "Help users perform Intercom 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 Intercom MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK to build a functional AI agent that can interact with Intercom.

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 Intercom MCP Agent with another framework

Claude Agent SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Use Intercom MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Google ADK

Google ADK

Use Intercom MCP with Google ADK

LangChain

LangChain

Use Intercom MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Vercel AI SDK

Use Intercom MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

Mastra AI

Use Intercom MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

LlamaIndex

Use Intercom MCP with LlamaIndex

CrewAI

CrewAI

Use Intercom MCP with CrewAI

FAQ

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

With a standalone Intercom MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Intercom tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Intercom 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 Intercom tools.

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

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

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HubSpot
Agent.ai
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Entelligence
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