How to integrate Needle MCP with OpenClaw

OpenClaw is the fastest growing agent harness out there, which can work 24/7 to automate almost any kind of tasks. However, its capabilities are limited to the tools it has access to. Composio allows your OpenClaw to access Needle with authentication management handled for you. You can execute actions on Needle via your favorite OpenClaw interface (Telegram, WhatsApp, TUI, etc), whichever you prefer.

Why use Composio?

Apart from a managed and hosted MCP server, you will get:

• Programmatic tool calling allows LLMs to write its code in a remote workbench to handle complex tool chaining. Reduces to-and-fro with LLMs for frequent tool calling.
• Handling Large tool responses out of LLM context to minimize context rot.
• Dynamic just-in-time access to 20,000 tools across 850+ other Apps for cross-app workflows. It loads the tools you need, so LLMs aren't overwhelmed by tools you don't need.

How to install Needle with OpenClaw

Using Composio API Key and Setup Prompt

• Go to dashboard.composio.dev/composio/~/connect/clients/openclaw
• Copy the setup prompt

• Run it in your OpenClaw chat interface.
• Authenticate Needle from the dashboard
• Go back to your OpenClaw interface and start asking questions.

Using OpenClaw/Composio Plugin

1. Install OpenClaw Composio plugin

2. Copy the API Key from dashboard.composio.dev

3. Setup OpenClaw Config

openclaw config set plugins.entries.composio.config.consumerKey "ck_your_key_here"

4. Restart OpenClaw

openclaw gateway restart

5. Go to your chat interface and start asking questions.

6. When prompted, authenticate the app and you're all set.

How It Works

The plugin connects to Composio's MCP server at https://connect.composio.dev/mcp and registers all available tools directly into the OpenClaw agent. Tools are called by name — no extra search or execute steps needed.

If a tool returns an auth error, the agent will prompt you to connect that toolkit at dashboard.composio.dev.

Configuration

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "composio": {
        "enabled": true,
        "config": {
          "consumerKey": "ck_your_key_here"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The Needle MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Needle account. It provides structured and secure access to your semantic search collections, so your agent can perform actions like creating and managing collections, uploading and deleting files, retrieving collection statistics, and listing available data sources on your behalf.

• Collection management and creation: Easily instruct your agent to create new semantic search collections tailored to your data needs.
• File listing and retrieval: Have your agent list and retrieve all files within a specific collection, making it simple to view and organize your indexed data.
• File deletion from collections: Direct your agent to remove unwanted or outdated files from any collection by specifying file IDs for cleanup and maintenance.
• Collection statistics and insights: Ask your agent to fetch real-time statistics on any collection, including document counts, index size, and timestamps to monitor your data health.
• Browse all available collections: Let your agent page through and present all your collections, so you can quickly access, search, or manage your data resources.

Conclusion

You've successfully integrated Needle with OpenClaw using Composio plugin. Now interact with Needle directly from your terminal, Web UI, or any messenger app using natural language commands.

Key benefits of this setup:

• Seamless integration across TUI, Web UIs, and Messenger apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, etc.
• Natural language commands for Needle operations
• Managed authentication through Composio
• Access to 20,000+ tools across 850+ apps for cross-app workflows
• Programmatic tool calling for complex tool chaining

Next steps:

• Try asking OpenClaw to perform various Needle operations
• Explore cross-app workflows by connecting more toolkits like Calendar, Slack, Notion, etc.
• Build complex automation scripts that leverage OpenClaw's 24/7 running capabilities