How to integrate Mailerlite MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Mailerlite to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Mailerlite agent that can create a new subscriber group called vip customers, add a custom field for subscriber birthday, create a segment for recent e-commerce buyers, delete an automation workflow that's no longer used through natural language commands.

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

The Mailerlite MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Mailerlite account. It provides structured and secure access to your email marketing tools, so your agent can create campaigns, manage subscribers, automate workflows, and oversee your shop integrations with ease.

  • Campaign automation and workflow management: Instruct your agent to create or delete automations, streamlining your email marketing processes and ensuring timely communication with your audience.
  • E-commerce customer and shop integration: Let your agent create, update, or remove e-commerce customers and shops for seamless sales tracking, customer onboarding, or data syncing.
  • Subscriber group and segment organization: Have your agent create custom fields, new subscriber groups, or targeted segments so you can send highly personalized campaigns.
  • Webhook registration for real-time updates: Direct your agent to set up webhooks for specific events, enabling instant notifications and integrations with other systems as actions happen in Mailerlite.
  • Efficient cleanup and management: Ask your agent to delete outdated automations, customers, or shops, helping you keep your Mailerlite workspace organized and up to date.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Create automationCreate automation
Create/Update E-commerce CustomerTool to create or update a customer record for a shop.
Create E-commerce ShopTool to connect a new e-commerce shop.
Create FieldTool to create a new custom field.
Create GroupTool to create a new subscriber group.
Create SegmentTool to create a new subscriber segment.
Create WebhookTool to register a new webhook url for specified event types.
Delete AutomationTool to delete an automation workflow by id.
Delete E-commerce CustomerTool to delete a customer from an e-commerce shop by ids.
Delete E-commerce ShopTool to disconnect an e-commerce shop by id.
Delete FieldTool to delete a custom field.
Delete GroupTool to delete a subscriber group by id.
Delete SegmentTool to delete a segment by id.
Delete SubscriberTool to delete a subscriber by id.
Delete WebhookTool to remove a webhook subscription by id.
Fetch Total E-commerce Customers CountTool to fetch total ecommerce customers count for a shop.
Get Account InfoTool to retrieve basic mailerlite account details.
Get Account StatsTool to retrieve usage statistics and performance metrics for the account.
Get AutomationTool to retrieve details of a specific automation by id.
Get CampaignsTool to retrieve a list of all campaigns.
Get E-commerce CustomerTool to fetch details of a customer by shop and customer id.
Get E-commerce CustomersTool to list customers for a specific shop.
Get E-commerce ShopTool to fetch details of a specific e-commerce shop by id.
Get E-commerce ShopsTool to list all e-commerce shops connected to the account.
Get FieldsTool to retrieve all custom fields defined in the account.
Get GroupsTool to retrieve all subscriber groups.
Get Group SubscribersTool to list subscribers within a group by id.
Get SegmentsTool to retrieve all segments in the account.
Get SubscribersTool to retrieve all subscribers.
Get WebhooksTool to retrieve all configured webhooks.
Set Double Opt-InTool to enable or disable double opt-in for new subscribers.
Update E-commerce CustomerTool to update a customer's data for a shop by ids.
Update E-commerce ShopTool to update settings of a connected e-commerce shop by id.
Update FieldTool to update the title of an existing custom field.
Update GroupTool to update a group's name by id.
Update SegmentTool to rename an existing segment by id.
Update SubscriberTool to update an existing subscriber's information by id.
Update WebhookTool to update an existing mailerlite webhook.

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 Mailerlite 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 Mailerlite.

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 Mailerlite Tool Router session
session = composio.create(
    user_id=user_id,
    toolkits=["mailerlite"]
)

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

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 Mailerlite MCP Agent with another framework

FAQ

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

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

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

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

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