How to integrate Pexels MCP with Atomic Agent

Connect Atomic Agent to Pexels MCP. Find free stock photos of beaches, get trending pexels videos this week, and more using natural language, with authentication handled for you.

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Api Key

Pexels is a free stock library offering high-quality photos and videos via API. Instantly boost your app or website with stunning visuals for any use case.

9 Tools

Introduction

Atomic Agent is an open-source AI agent that runs on your machine and supports local models through llama.cpp. Connect it to 1,500+ apps through Composio, including Pexels.

This guide uses Atomic Agent's built-in Composio integration. You need Atomic Agent v0.5.6 or later, your own Composio API key, and a Pexels account. See the Atomic Agent documentation for installation instructions.

Also integrate Pexels with

How Atomic Agent connects to Pexels

Atomic Agent connects to Composio's Tool Router over Streamable HTTP MCP. It discovers the tools needed for your request, and Composio handles account authentication.

Execution and account-connection tools follow Atomic Agent's configured approval policy. Review any approval prompt before allowing an action on your connected account.

Connect Pexels to Atomic Agent

  1. Sign up or sign in to the Composio dashboard. Copy your API key.
  2. In Atomic Agent, open the Integrations tab and select Composio. Select API key, press e, paste the key, and press Enter. The tools become available immediately, without a restart.
  3. Ask Atomic Agent to do something in Pexels. It searches Composio for the right tool.
  4. On first use, open the sign-in link returned in the chat. Connect your Pexels account, then return to Atomic Agent to continue.

Headless setup

Add the following line to ~/.atomic-agent/.env, replacing YOUR_COMPOSIO_API_KEY with your key. Start Atomic Agent after saving the file.

bash
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=YOUR_COMPOSIO_API_KEY

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

The Pexels MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Pexels account. It provides structured and secure access to the Pexels media library, so your agent can search photos and videos, fetch curated collections, explore trending media, and retrieve detailed asset information on your behalf.

  • Photo and video search: Instantly find high-quality photos and videos from Pexels based on keywords, categories, or filters using natural language queries.
  • Curated and trending media discovery: Let your agent fetch the latest curated photos or surface popular videos to keep your content pipeline fresh and engaging.
  • Collection management and exploration: Access your own collections or featured Pexels collections, and pull all media from any collection with ease.
  • Detailed asset retrieval: Retrieve metadata, dimensions, and direct image or video URLs for any specific photo or video asset by ID.
  • Content integration for creative workflows: Seamlessly pull media assets into your applications, presentations, or creative projects with minimal effort.

Use Pexels from Atomic Agent

With your account connected, ask Atomic Agent to work with Pexels in natural language. You can connect more apps through the same Composio integration as you need them.

Visit the Atomic Agent website or inspect the Atomic Agent source code.

Troubleshooting

Why is my API key rejected?

Copy the key directly from the Composio dashboard. Atomic Agent requires ASCII characters because it sends the key in an HTTP header. Remove any extra characters introduced when copying.

Why are Composio tools unavailable after saving a key?

Check that you use Atomic Agent v0.5.6 or later and that Composio is enabled in your configuration. A "composio": { "enabled": false } setting disables the integration while keeping the saved key on disk.

Does Composio have a free plan?

The Hobby plan includes 100,000 tool calls per month. Composio-managed OAuth apps have a lower included allowance. See Composio pricing for the current limits that apply to your connection.

TOOLS

Supported Tools

Every Pexels action and event your agent gets out of the box.

Get Collection Media

Tool to get all media within a collection by its ID.

Get Curated Photos

Tool to get real-time curated photos.

Featured Collections

Tool to get featured collections.

Get Photo

Tool to retrieve detailed information about a specific photo.

Get Video by ID

Tool to retrieve detailed information about a specific video from Pexels.

Get My Collections

Tool to get all of the user's collections on Pexels.

Get Popular Videos

Tool to retrieve current popular Pexels videos.

Search Photos

Tool to search for photos on Pexels.

Search Videos

Tool to search for videos on Pexels by query and optional filters.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. Atomic Agent 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 Pexels tools.

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Pexels 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.

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 Pexels data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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