How to integrate Zenrows MCP with CrewAI

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Zenrows to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Zenrows agent that can download a pdf of this news article, extract plain text from the given webpage, get latest property data from zillow, show my current zenrows api usage stats through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Zenrows account through Composio's Zenrows 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 a Composio API key and configure your Zenrows connection
  • Set up CrewAI with an MCP enabled agent
  • Create a Tool Router session or standalone MCP server for Zenrows
  • Build a conversational loop where your agent can execute Zenrows operations

What is CrewAI?

CrewAI is a powerful framework for building multi-agent AI systems. It provides primitives for defining agents with specific roles, creating tasks, and orchestrating workflows through crews.

Key features include:

  • Agent Roles: Define specialized agents with specific goals and backstories
  • Task Management: Create tasks with clear descriptions and expected outputs
  • Crew Orchestration: Combine agents and tasks into collaborative workflows
  • MCP Integration: Connect to external tools through Model Context Protocol

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

The Zenrows MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Zenrows account. It provides structured and secure access to advanced web scraping capabilities, so your agent can extract structured data, bypass CAPTCHAs, convert pages to PDF, and monitor your API usage on your behalf.

  • Intelligent web data extraction: Direct your agent to scrape and extract plain text or structured data from dynamic websites, including specialized real estate property data from platforms like Zillow or Idealista.
  • PDF and content generation: Ask your agent to convert any web page into a PDF or retrieve clean, formatted plain text for archiving, documentation, or offline reading.
  • Seamless CAPTCHA and block bypassing: Enable your agent to gather data from sites protected by CAPTCHAs or anti-bot systems without manual intervention.
  • Real-time API usage monitoring: Have the agent check your account’s current API usage, concurrency status, and limits to help manage credits and avoid interruptions.
  • Session and compression management: Instruct your agent to maintain consistent scraping sessions, handle compression to optimize bandwidth, and retrieve detailed response headers for debugging and performance optimization.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Get ZenRows API Usage StatisticsThis tool retrieves the current api usage statistics and limits for your zenrows account.
Get Concurrency StatusThis tool retrieves the current concurrency status of your zenrows api usage.
Get Detailed Concurrency StatusThis tool provides detailed information about the current concurrency status and limits of your zenrows account by making a request to the api and analyzing the response headers.
Get Original Status CodeThis tool retrieves the original http status code returned by the target website, which is useful for debugging purposes.
Get PDF from URLThis tool generates a pdf version of the scraped content from a given url.
Get Plaintext ResponseThis tool extracts plain text content from a webpage using the zenrows api.
Get Real Estate Property DataA specialized tool for extracting structured data from real estate platforms like zillow and idealista.
Get Response with CompressionA tool to fetch content from a url using the zenrows api with compression enabled to optimize bandwidth usage and improve performance.
Get response headersA tool to retrieve and parse response headers from zenrows api requests.
Get Session IDThis tool implements zenrows' session management functionality to maintain the same ip address across multiple requests for up to 10 minutes.
Get Walmart Product DetailsThis tool allows users to extract detailed product information from walmart using zenrows' specialized e-commerce scraping api.
Scrape urlScrape and extract data from a specified url.
Scrape url autoparseThe zenrows scrape url autoparse tool automatically parses and extracts structured data from any given url using intelligent parsing capabilities.
Scrape URL HTMLThis tool extracts raw html data from a given url using zenrows' universal scraper api.
Scrape URL with CSS SelectorsThis tool allows users to scrape specific elements from a webpage using css selectors.
Screenshot URLA tool to capture screenshots of web pages using zenrows api.

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:
  • Python 3.9 or higher
  • A Composio account and API key
  • A Zenrows connection authorized in Composio
  • An OpenAI API key for the CrewAI LLM
  • Basic familiarity with Python

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
  • Log in to the Composio dashboard.
  • Navigate to your API settings and generate a new API key.
  • Store this key securely as you'll need it for authentication.

Install dependencies

bash
pip install composio crewai crewai-tools python-dotenv
What's happening:
  • composio connects your agent to Zenrows via MCP
  • crewai provides Agent, Task, Crew, and LLM primitives
  • crewai-tools includes MCP helpers
  • python-dotenv loads environment variables from .env

Set up environment variables

bash
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_composio_api_key_here
USER_ID=your_user_id_here
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key_here

Create a .env file in your project root.

What's happening:

  • COMPOSIO_API_KEY authenticates with Composio
  • USER_ID scopes the session to your account
  • OPENAI_API_KEY lets CrewAI use your chosen OpenAI model

Import dependencies

python
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, LLM
from crewai_tools import MCPServerAdapter  # optional import if you plan to adapt tools
from composio import Composio
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os
from crewai.mcp import MCPServerHTTP

load_dotenv()
What's happening:
  • CrewAI classes define agents and tasks, and run the workflow
  • MCPServerHTTP connects the agent to an MCP endpoint
  • Composio will give you a short lived Zenrows MCP URL

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Zenrows

python
composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
session = composio.create(
    user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
    toolkits=["zenrows"],
)
url = session.mcp.url
What's happening:
  • You create a Zenrows only session through Composio
  • Composio returns an MCP HTTP URL that exposes Zenrows tools

Configure the LLM

python
llm = LLM(
    model="gpt-5-mini",
    api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
)
What's happening:
  • CrewAI will call this LLM for planning and responses
  • You can swap in a different model if needed

Attach the MCP server and create the agent

python
toolkit_agent = Agent(
    role="Zenrows Assistant",
    goal="Help users interact with Zenrows through natural language commands",
    backstory=(
        "You are an expert assistant with access to Zenrows tools. "
        "You can perform various Zenrows operations on behalf of the user."
    ),
    mcps=[
        MCPServerHTTP(
            url=url,
            streamable=True,
            cache_tools_list=True,
            headers={"x-api-key": os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")},
        ),
    ],
    llm=llm,
    verbose=True,
    max_iter=10,
)
What's happening:
  • MCPServerHTTP connects the agent to the Zenrows MCP endpoint
  • cache_tools_list saves a tools catalog for faster subsequent runs
  • verbose helps you see what the agent is doing

Add a REPL loop with Task and Crew

python
print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n")
print("Try asking the agent to perform Zenrows operations.\n")

conversation_context = ""

while True:
    user_input = input("You: ").strip()

    if user_input.lower() in ["exit", "quit", "bye"]:
        print("\nGoodbye!")
        break

    if not user_input:
        continue

    conversation_context += f"\nUser: {user_input}\n"
    print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

    task = Task(
        description=(
            f"Based on the conversation history:\n{conversation_context}\n\n"
            f"Current user request: {user_input}\n\n"
            f"Please help the user with their Zenrows related request."
        ),
        expected_output="A helpful response addressing the user's request",
        agent=toolkit_agent,
    )

    crew = Crew(
        agents=[toolkit_agent],
        tasks=[task],
        verbose=False,
    )

    result = crew.kickoff()
    response = str(result)

    conversation_context += f"Agent: {response}\n"
    print(f"Agent: {response}\n")
What's happening:
  • You build a simple chat loop and keep a running context
  • Each user turn becomes a Task handled by the same agent
  • Crew executes the task and returns a response

Run the application

python
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
What's happening:
  • Standard Python entry point so you can run python crewai_zenrows_agent.py

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Zenrows and CrewAI:

python
# file: crewai_zenrows_agent.py
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, LLM
from crewai_tools import MCPServerAdapter  # optional
from composio import Composio
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os
from crewai.mcp import MCPServerHTTP

load_dotenv()

def main():
    # Initialize Composio and create a Zenrows session
    composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
        toolkits=["zenrows"],
    )
    url = session.mcp.url

    # Configure LLM
    llm = LLM(
        model="gpt-5-mini",
        api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
    )

    # Create Zenrows assistant agent
    toolkit_agent = Agent(
        role="Zenrows Assistant",
        goal="Help users interact with Zenrows through natural language commands",
        backstory=(
            "You are an expert assistant with access to Zenrows tools. "
            "You can perform various Zenrows operations on behalf of the user."
        ),
        mcps=[
            MCPServerHTTP(
                url=url,
                streamable=True,
                cache_tools_list=True,
                headers={"x-api-key": os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")},
            ),
        ],
        llm=llm,
        verbose=True,
        max_iter=10,
    )

    print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end the conversation.\n")
    print("Try asking the agent to perform Zenrows operations.\n")

    conversation_context = ""

    while True:
        user_input = input("You: ").strip()

        if user_input.lower() in ["exit", "quit", "bye"]:
            print("\nGoodbye!")
            break

        if not user_input:
            continue

        conversation_context += f"\nUser: {user_input}\n"
        print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

        task = Task(
            description=(
                f"Based on the conversation history:\n{conversation_context}\n\n"
                f"Current user request: {user_input}\n\n"
                f"Please help the user with their Zenrows related request."
            ),
            expected_output="A helpful response addressing the user's request",
            agent=toolkit_agent,
        )

        crew = Crew(
            agents=[toolkit_agent],
            tasks=[task],
            verbose=False,
        )

        result = crew.kickoff()
        response = str(result)

        conversation_context += f"Agent: {response}\n"
        print(f"Agent: {response}\n")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Conclusion

You now have a CrewAI agent connected to Zenrows through Composio's Tool Router. The agent can perform Zenrows operations through natural language commands. Next steps:
  • Add role-specific instructions to customize agent behavior
  • Plug in more toolkits for multi-app workflows
  • Chain tasks for complex multi-step operations

How to build Zenrows MCP Agent with another framework

FAQ

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

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

Can I use Tool Router MCP with CrewAI?

Yes, you can. CrewAI 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 Zenrows tools.

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

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

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