How to connect Pexels to Claude Cowork

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Introduction

Cowork is Anthropic's AI agent for knowledge work. Think of it as Claude Code for everything else. It works autonomously with your computer, local files, and applications to accomplish complex tasks.

This guide walks you through the easiest and most secure way to connect your Pexels account to Cowork via Composio Connect, enabling it to find free stock photos of beaches, get trending Pexels videos this week, list featured photography collections, and more such actions on your behalf without compromising your account security.

Also integrate Pexels with

Connecting Pexels to Claude Cowork

1. Open Customize

In Claude Desktop, click Customize in the left sidebar, then select Connectors and click the + icon at the top.

Claude Desktop connectors screen with Add custom connector selected

2. Add the Composio MCP server

Click Add custom connector and paste in the Composio MCP server URL:

bash
https://connect.composio.dev/mcp
Add custom connector dialog with Composio MCP server URL

3. Authorize in your browser

Click Connect. You'll be redirected to a browser window where you can authorize Composio to continue.

Composio authorization screen for Claude Cowork

4. Connect your Pexels account

Back in Cowork, ask the agent to connect to Pexels or give it any Pexels-related task.

For example, ask Cowork to:

  • "Find free stock photos of beaches"
  • "Get trending Pexels videos this week"
  • "List featured photography collections"

It will prompt you to authenticate and authorize access.

That's it. Composio's tools are now available in Cowork, and your Pexels account is ready to use.

What is Claude Cowork?

Claude Cowork is Anthropic's agent for general knowledge work. It can use your computer, files, and connected applications to complete longer-running tasks across your work tools.

With Composio Connect, Cowork can securely access apps like Pexels through MCP without you sharing account credentials directly with the agent.

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.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Get Collection MediaTool to get all media within a collection by its id.
Get Curated PhotosTool to get real-time curated photos.
Featured CollectionsTool to get featured collections.
Get PhotoTool to retrieve detailed information about a specific photo.
Get My CollectionsTool to get all of the user's collections on pexels.
Get Popular VideosTool to retrieve current popular pexels videos.
Search PhotosTool to search for photos on pexels.
Search VideosTool to search for videos on pexels by query and optional filters.

Available tools and triggers

After setup, the supported Pexels tools and triggers listed on this page are available to Cowork through Composio Connect.

You can now ask Cowork to handle Pexels workflows in natural language, from quick summaries and drafting tasks to more complex multi-step work across connected apps.

How to build Pexels MCP Agent with another framework

FAQ

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

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.

Can I use Tool Router MCP with Claude Cowork?

Yes, you can. Claude Cowork 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.

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

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.

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 Pexels data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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