How to integrate Tavily MCP with Grok Build

Connect Grok Build to Tavily MCP. Find latest news about electric vehicles, search for recent ai research papers, and more from your terminal, with authentication handled for you.

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Tavily offers powerful search and data retrieval from documents, databases, and the web. It helps teams locate and filter information instantly, saving hours on research.

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How to integrate Tavily MCP with Grok Build

Grok Build is xAI's terminal coding agent. It runs on Grok 4.5, plans its work before it acts, and can run multiple sub-agents in parallel. It also reads Claude Code's MCP configuration, so any server you already have in a .mcp.json is picked up with no changes.

In this guide, I will show you how to connect your Tavily account to Grok Build through Composio, so it can find latest news about electric vehicles, search for recent AI research papers, get top articles on remote work trends, and more without leaving the terminal. Composio holds the OAuth tokens for you, and Grok Build only calls the tools you approve.

Also integrate Tavily with

Why use Composio over a standalone MCP server?

  • Read and write access. Composio's Tavily integration lets Grok Build take real actions like creating drafts, sending updates, and labeling records, not just reading data.
  • 1,000+ SaaS toolkits out of the box. One endpoint gives you a full catalog of pre-built connectors, from Gmail and Slack to Notion, Linear, and Salesforce.
  • One MCP server for every app. Wire up a single Composio server instead of maintaining a separate MCP entry for each app.
  • Smart, context-aware tool loading. Grok Build caps how many tools it holds in a single request. Composio loads only the tools a task needs, so you do not spend that budget on tools you are not using.
  • Cross-app automation. Chain actions across apps in one run. Pull a thread, summarize it in Notion, and post the highlights to Slack from a single prompt.

Prerequisites

  • Grok Build installed and signed in. Install with curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash on macOS or Linux, or irm https://x.ai/cli/install.ps1 | iex on Windows PowerShell. On first launch Grok opens a browser to authenticate; for headless or CI use, set an XAI_API_KEY environment variable instead (create the key at console.x.ai).
  • Access to the Tavily account you want to connect.
  • The Composio MCP endpoint. Composio's server is remote and hosted, so there is nothing to run locally and no tunnel to set up.

Step-by-step: Connect Tavily to Grok Build

1. Install and verify Grok Build

Install the CLI, then restart your shell so the grok binary lands on your PATH:

bash
curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash
which grok

On Windows, install with PowerShell instead: irm https://x.ai/cli/install.ps1 | iex. If which grok returns a path, you are set. Grok Build runs on Grok 4.5 by default; you can switch models inside the session with /model <name>.

2. Add the Composio server

Add Composio as a remote HTTP MCP server with the grok mcp add command:

bash
grok mcp add --transport http composio https://connect.composio.dev/mcp

You can also add and manage servers from inside a session. Run /mcps to open the extensions modal on the MCP tab, then add a new server and paste the Composio URL. Added this way, Grok auto-detects the name from the URL and lists the server as connect:

bash
https://connect.composio.dev/mcp
Grok Build /mcps extensions modal listing MCP servers Grok Build adding the Composio MCP server with its URL

Grok also reads Claude Code-style config, so an entry in ~/.grok/config.toml or a project .mcp.json works the same way.

3. Authenticate

Composio uses OAuth. In the /mcps modal, select the Composio server and press i to authenticate (Grok also triggers this browser flow automatically the first time it uses a Composio tool). Click Allow to authorize access. Grok stores the tokens under ~/.grok/mcp_credentials.json, and /mcps shows Composio as connected.

Grok Build prompting to authenticate the Composio MCP server Composio authorization screen with the Allow button for Grok Build

4. Start building

Ask Grok to work with your Tavily account through Composio. On the first Tavily action, Composio prompts you to connect the account through OAuth. Approve the scopes once, and Composio handles token refresh from there.

What you can do after connecting Tavily

  • Find latest news about electric vehicles
  • Search for recent AI research papers
  • Get top articles on remote work trends
  • Locate product reviews for noise-cancelling headphones

Security + privacy notes (important)

  • Use least-privilege access. Grant only the Tavily scopes you actually need.
  • Review OAuth scopes before approving. Check that the requested scopes match what you expect Composio and Grok Build to do.
  • Keep write actions human-reviewed. Grok Build proposes a plan before it acts. Leave that approval step on for actions like sending messages or editing records.
  • Keep secrets out of version control. Your XAI_API_KEY and any tokens should never be committed. Use environment variables or a secrets manager.
TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Tavily crawl

Tool to perform intelligent graph-based website crawling with parallel path exploration and content extraction.

Tavily extract

Tool to extract and parse web page content from specified URLs using Tavily's extract endpoint.

Get Tavily usage

Tool to retrieve API key and account usage statistics from Tavily.

Tavily map website

Tool to map a website and discover its pages.

Tavily search

Use this to perform a web search via the Tavily API; offers controls for search depth, content types, result count, and domain filtering.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

A standalone Tavily MCP server gives Grok Build a fixed set of Tavily tools tied to that one server. The Composio Tool Router lets Grok Build load tools from Tavily and many other apps on demand, based on the task, all through a single endpoint.

Yes. Grok Build ships with native MCP support. Add a server with the grok mcp add command, from the in-session /mcps modal, or by editing ~/.grok/config.toml. It also reads Claude Code-style .mcp.json files, so Grok Build discovers the tools automatically.

Yes. Grok Build has zero-migration compatibility with Claude Code's configuration, so the same Composio server entry works in both without edits.

Tokens, keys, and configuration are encrypted at rest and in transit. Composio is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, so your Tavily data and credentials are handled to that standard.

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