How to integrate Zep MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Zep to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Zep agent that can store a memory about today's meeting, retrieve all memories tagged urgent, summarize knowledge about client preferences through natural language commands.

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

The Zep MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Zep account. It provides structured and secure access so your agent can perform Zep operations on your behalf.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Add Fact TripleTool to add a manually specified fact triple (subject-predicate-object) to the Zep knowledge graph.
Add Session MemoryTool to add memory messages to a specified Zep session.
Add Thread MessagesTool to add chat messages to a thread in Zep and ingest them into the user knowledge graph.
Clone GraphTool to clone a user or group graph with new identifiers in Zep.
Create GraphTool to create a new graph by adding data to Zep.
Create GroupTool to create a new group in Zep for multi-user graph management.
Create SessionTool to create a new session in Zep for storing conversation memory.
Create ThreadTool to create a new thread in Zep for a specific user.
Create UserTool to create a new user in Zep with properties like user_id, email, and metadata.
Delete GraphTool to delete a graph from Zep.
Delete GroupTool to delete a group from Zep.
Delete Session MemoryTool to delete a session and its memory from Zep.
Delete ThreadTool to delete a thread and its messages from Zep.
Delete UserTool to delete a user and all associated threads and artifacts from Zep.
Get Edge by UUIDTool to retrieve a specific edge by its UUID from the Zep knowledge graph.
Get Graph by IDTool to retrieve a graph by its unique identifier from Zep.
Get Group by IDTool to retrieve a group by ID from Zep.
Get Node Entity EdgesTool to retrieve all entity edges for a specific node in the Zep knowledge graph.
Get Project InfoTool to retrieve project information based on the provided API key.
Get Session by IDTool to retrieve a session by its unique identifier from Zep.
Get Session MemoryTool to retrieve memory for a given session including relevant facts and entities.
Get Session Message by UUIDTool to retrieve a specific message by UUID from a Zep session.
Get Session MessagesTool to retrieve messages for a given session from Zep.
Get Task StatusTool to check the status of asynchronous operations in Zep.
Get Thread MessagesTool to retrieve conversation history for a specific thread from Zep.
Get Thread User ContextTool to retrieve the most relevant user context from the user graph based on thread messages.
Get User by IDTool to retrieve a user by their user ID from Zep.
Get User NodeTool to retrieve a user's graph node and summary from Zep.
Get User NodesTool to retrieve all nodes for a specific user from their graph in Zep.
Get User SessionsTool to retrieve all sessions for a user from Zep.
Get User ThreadsTool to retrieve all threads for a specific user from Zep.
Graph SearchTool to perform hybrid graph search combining semantic similarity and BM25 full-text search across the Zep knowledge graph.
List GraphsTool to retrieve all graphs from Zep with pagination support.
List Groups OrderedTool to retrieve all groups from Zep with pagination support.
List Sessions OrderedTool to retrieve all sessions from Zep with pagination and ordering support.
List ThreadsTool to retrieve all threads from Zep with pagination support.
List Users OrderedTool to retrieve all users from Zep with pagination support.
List All ThreadsTool to list all threads with pagination and ordering support.
Update GraphTool to update graph information in Zep including name and description.
Update GroupTool to update group information in Zep including name, description, and fact rating instructions.
Update MessageTool to update a message in a Zep thread.
Update Session MetadataTool to update session metadata in Zep.
Update UserTool to update an existing user's information in Zep including email, metadata, and ontology settings.

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 Zep 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 Zep.

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 Zep Tool Router session
session = composio.create(
    user_id=user_id,
    toolkits=["zep"]
)

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

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.

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FAQ

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

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

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

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

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