How to integrate Short io MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Short io to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Short io agent that can show click stats for my latest short links, list most popular short urls this month, get opengraph settings for a specific link, display all regions targeted by a short link through natural language commands.

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

The Short io MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Short io account. It provides structured and secure access to your branded short links, so your agent can create and manage links, retrieve analytics, organize domains, and optimize your link campaigns automatically.

  • Automated branded link creation and management: Instantly generate new short links, fetch details, update metadata, and organize your links by domain—all on demand.
  • Comprehensive click analytics and statistics: Retrieve detailed click metrics for individual links or aggregated data by domain to track performance and measure engagement.
  • Popular path and traffic insights: Analyze the most visited short link paths in your domains over time to understand which content resonates with your audience.
  • Granular permissions and access control: Check and manage user permissions on links within your domains, ensuring secure collaboration and streamlined workflows.
  • Open Graph and targeting customization: Review and adjust Open Graph properties for better link previews and set up advanced targeting rules by region or country to maximize reach.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Get Domain Link ClicksTool to get click statistics for all links in a domain.
Get Domain PathsTool to list the most popular paths in a domain over time.
Get Link Info by Link IDTool to get detailed info for a link by id.
Get Link Info by PathTool to get link info by its path and domain.
Get Link OpenGraph PropertiesTool to retrieve opengraph settings for a link.
Get Link PermissionsTool to list all user permissions for a link.
Get Link Regions by CountryTool to list all regions available for a country.
Get Link RegionsTool to get region-based targeting rules for a link.
Get Links ListTool to list short links on a domain with optional filters.
Get Link StatisticsTool to get click statistics for a specific link.
Get Link (Tweetbot)Tool to quickly create a link via query string (tweetbot).
Get Domain Statistics by IntervalTool to retrieve domain statistics over a custom interval.
Post Domains Last ClicksTool to retrieve the latest raw click events for a domain.
Get Domain Top ValuesTool to retrieve top values of a specified column by click count.
Archive Links in BulkTool to archive multiple links in one call.
Create Links in BulkTool to create up to 1000 short links in one call.
Generate QR Codes in BulkTool to generate qr codes for multiple links in bulk.
Unarchive Links in BulkTool to unarchive multiple links in bulk.

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 Short io 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 Short io.

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 Short io Tool Router session
session = composio.create(
    user_id=user_id,
    toolkits=["short_io"]
)

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

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 Short io MCP Agent with another framework

FAQ

What are the differences in Tool Router MCP and Short io MCP?

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

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

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

Used by agents from

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Context
ASU
Letta
glean
HubSpot
Agent.ai
Altera
DataStax
Entelligence
Rolai
Context
ASU
Letta
glean
HubSpot
Agent.ai
Altera
DataStax
Entelligence
Rolai

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