How to integrate Zoho MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Connect OpenAI Agents SDK to Zoho MCP. Convert new leads to contacts in crm, add a note to an existing zoho deal, and more using natural language, with authentication handled for you.

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Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Zoho to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Zoho agent that can convert new leads to contacts in crm, add a note to an existing zoho deal, list all contacts added this week through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your OpenAI Agents SDK agent real control over a Zoho account through Composio's Zoho MCP server.

Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Also integrate Zoho with

Claude Code Claude Cowork Claude Agent SDK Muse Codex Kimi Code OpenClaw Hermes Atomic Agent CLI Google ADK LangChain Vercel AI SDK Mastra AI LlamaIndex CrewAI Pydantic AI AutoGen

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 Zoho
Configure an AI agent that can use Zoho as a tool
Run a live chat session where you can ask the agent to perform Zoho operations

What is OpenAI 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 Zoho MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Zoho MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Zoho account. It provides structured and secure access to your Zoho CRM data, so your agent can create contacts and leads, manage deals, search records, track activities, and draft emails on your behalf.

Contact and lead management: Have your agent create contacts and leads, find existing records, and review prospect details in Zoho CRM.
Deal and account tracking: Let the agent create and update deals, review sales opportunities, search accounts, and update account details.
Tasks, calls, and event coordination: Direct your agent to find tasks, review logged calls, create events, and check upcoming meetings.
Notes, emails, and attachments: Instruct your agent to add notes to CRM records, review related emails and attachments, and prepare email drafts.
CRM record discovery: Have your agent search across Zoho CRM modules, list available modules, and retrieve related records for added context.

What is the Composio tool router, and how does it fit here?

What is Composio SDK?

Composio's Composio SDK 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 Composio SDK

The tool router generates a secure MCP URL that your agents can access to perform actions.

How the Composio SDK works

The Composio SDK follows a three-phase workflow:

Discovery: Searches for tools matching your task and returns relevant toolkits with their details.
Authentication: Checks for active connections. If missing, creates an auth config and returns a connection URL via Auth Link.
Execution: Executes the action using the authenticated connection.

Step-by-step Guide

Step by step09 STEPS

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

Composio API Key and OpenAI API Key
Primary know-how of OpenAI Agents SDK
A live Zoho 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

Log in to the Composio dashboard.
Go to Settings and copy your API key.

Install dependencies

npm install @composio/openai-agents @openai/agents 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 'dotenv/config';
import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { OpenAIAgentsProvider } from '@composio/openai-agents';
import { Agent, hostedMcpTool, run, OpenAIConversationsSession } from '@openai/agents';
import * as readline from 'readline';

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 Zoho.

Set up the Composio instance

dotenv.config();

const composioApiKey = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const userId = process.env.USER_ID;

if (!composioApiKey) {
  throw new Error('COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set. Create a .env file with COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_key');
}
if (!userId) {
  throw new Error('USER_ID is not set');
}

// Initialize Composio
const composio = new Composio({
  apiKey: composioApiKey,
  provider: new OpenAIAgentsProvider(),
});

What's happening:

dotenv.config() loads your .env file so COMPOSIO_API_KEY and USER_ID are available as environment variables.
Creating a Composio instance using the API Key and OpenAIAgentsProvider class.

Create a Tool Router session

// Create Tool Router session for Zoho
const session = await composio.create(userId as string, {
  toolkits: ['zoho'],
});
const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;

What is happening:

You give the Tool Router the user id and the toolkits you want available. Here, it is only zoho.
The router checks the user's Zoho connection and prepares the MCP endpoint.
The returned session.mcp.url is the MCP URL that your agent will use to access Zoho.
This approach keeps things lightweight and lets the agent request Zoho tools only when needed during the conversation.

Configure the agent

// Configure agent with MCP tool
const agent = new Agent({
  name: 'Assistant',
  model: 'gpt-5',
  instructions:
    'You are a helpful assistant that can access Zoho. Help users perform Zoho operations through natural language.',
  tools: [
    hostedMcpTool({
      serverLabel: 'tool_router',
      serverUrl: mcpUrl,
      headers: { 'x-api-key': composioApiKey },
      requireApproval: '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 Zoho 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 object includes the Composio API key for secure authentication with the MCP server.
requireApproval: 'never' means the agent can execute Zoho operations without asking for permission each time, making interactions smoother.

Start chat loop and handle conversation

// Keep conversation state across turns
const conversationSession = new OpenAIConversationsSession();

// Simple CLI
const rl = readline.createInterface({
  input: process.stdin,
  output: process.stdout,
  prompt: 'You: ',
});

console.log('\nComposio Tool Router session created.');
console.log('\nChat started. Type your requests below.');
console.log("Commands: 'exit', 'quit', or 'q' to end\n");

try {
  const first = await run(agent, 'What can you help me with?', { session: conversationSession });
  console.log(`Assistant: ${first.finalOutput}\n`);
} catch (e) {
  console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
}

rl.prompt();

rl.on('line', async (userInput) => {
  const text = userInput.trim();

  if (['exit', 'quit', 'q'].includes(text.toLowerCase())) {
    console.log('Goodbye!');
    rl.close();
    process.exit(0);
  }

  if (!text) {
    rl.prompt();
    return;
  }

  try {
    const result = await run(agent, text, { session: conversationSession });
    console.log(`\nAssistant: ${result.finalOutput}\n`);
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
  }

  rl.prompt();
});

rl.on('close', () => {
  console.log('\n👋 Session ended.');
  process.exit(0);
});

What's happening:

The program prints a session URL that you visit to authorize Zoho.
After authorization, the chat begins.
Each message you type is processed by the agent using run().
The responses are printed to the console.
Typing exit, quit, or q cleanly ends the chat.

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Zoho and OpenAI Agents SDK:

import 'dotenv/config';
import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { OpenAIAgentsProvider } from '@composio/openai-agents';
import { Agent, hostedMcpTool, run, OpenAIConversationsSession } from '@openai/agents';
import * as readline from 'readline';

const composioApiKey = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const userId = process.env.USER_ID;

if (!composioApiKey) {
  throw new Error('COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set. Create a .env file with COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_key');
}
if (!userId) {
  throw new Error('USER_ID is not set');
}

// Initialize Composio
const composio = new Composio({
  apiKey: composioApiKey,
  provider: new OpenAIAgentsProvider(),
});

async function main() {
  // Create Tool Router session
  const session = await composio.create(userId as string, {
    toolkits: ['zoho'],
  });
  const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;

  // Configure agent with MCP tool
  const agent = new Agent({
    name: 'Assistant',
    model: 'gpt-5',
    instructions:
      'You are a helpful assistant that can access Zoho. Help users perform Zoho operations through natural language.',
    tools: [
      hostedMcpTool({
        serverLabel: 'tool_router',
        serverUrl: mcpUrl,
        headers: { 'x-api-key': composioApiKey },
        requireApproval: 'never',
      }),
    ],
  });

  // Keep conversation state across turns
  const conversationSession = new OpenAIConversationsSession();

  // Simple CLI
  const rl = readline.createInterface({
    input: process.stdin,
    output: process.stdout,
    prompt: 'You: ',
  });

  console.log('\nComposio Tool Router session created.');
  console.log('\nChat started. Type your requests below.');
  console.log("Commands: 'exit', 'quit', or 'q' to end\n");

  try {
    const first = await run(agent, 'What can you help me with?', { session: conversationSession });
    console.log(`Assistant: ${first.finalOutput}\n`);
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
  }

  rl.prompt();

  rl.on('line', async (userInput) => {
    const text = userInput.trim();

    if (['exit', 'quit', 'q'].includes(text.toLowerCase())) {
      console.log('Goodbye!');
      rl.close();
      process.exit(0);
    }

    if (!text) {
      rl.prompt();
      return;
    }

    try {
      const result = await run(agent, text, { session: conversationSession });
      console.log(`\nAssistant: ${result.finalOutput}\n`);
    } catch (e) {
      console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
    }

    rl.prompt();
  });

  rl.on('close', () => {
    console.log('\nSession ended.');
    process.exit(0);
  });
}

main().catch((err) => {
  console.error('Fatal error:', err);
  process.exit(1);
});

Conclusion

This was a starter code for integrating Zoho MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK to build a functional AI agent that can interact with Zoho.

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.

TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Convert Zoho CRM Lead

Converts a lead into a contact, account, and optionally a deal in Zoho CRM.

Create Contact in Zoho CRM

Creates a new contact record in Zoho CRM.

Create Deal in Zoho CRM

Creates a new deal in Zoho CRM representing a sales opportunity with deal name, stage, amount, and closing date.

Create Email Draft in Zoho CRM

Creates email drafts for a specific record in Zoho CRM.

Create Zoho Event

Creates a new Event record in Zoho CRM.

Create Lead in Zoho CRM

Creates a new lead record in Zoho CRM with the specified details.

Create Note in Zoho CRM

Creates a new note attached to a specific record in Zoho CRM.

Create Zoho CRM Record

Creates new records in a specified module in Zoho CRM.

Create Zoho CRM Tag

Creates a new tag in Zoho CRM for a specific module.

Delete Zoho Account

Deletes an existing account record from Zoho CRM.

Delete Zoho CRM Contact

Deletes a contact from Zoho CRM.

Delete Zoho CRM Deal

Deletes a deal record from Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM Account

Retrieves a specific Account record from Zoho CRM by its unique identifier.

Get Call

Retrieves a specific Call record by its unique identifier from Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM Contact

Retrieves a single contact record by ID from Zoho CRM.

Get Email Drafts for Zoho CRM Record

Retrieves email drafts associated with a specific record in Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho Event

Retrieves a specific event record from Zoho CRM by its unique identifier.

Get From Addresses

Retrieves the list of from addresses configured for email operations in Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM Module Fields Metadata

Retrieves field metadata for a Zoho CRM module including API names, data types, permissions, and configuration details.

Get Zoho CRM Note

Retrieves a single note by its unique identifier from Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM Record Emails

Retrieves all emails associated with a specific record in Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM Related Lists Metadata

Retrieves related list metadata for a Zoho CRM module to discover correct api_name values.

Get Zoho CRM Related Records

Fetch related-list records (e.

Get Zoho CRM Task

Retrieves a specific task record by its ID from Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM User

Retrieves a specific user from Zoho CRM by their user ID.

Get Zoho CRM Records

Retrieves records from a specified module in Zoho CRM.

Get Zoho CRM Users

Tool to retrieve users from Zoho CRM.

List Zoho CRM Accounts

Retrieves a list of account records from Zoho CRM with pagination and filtering support.

List Zoho CRM Calls

Retrieves Call activity records from Zoho CRM with pagination support.

List Contacts

Retrieves contact records from Zoho CRM with support for pagination, filtering, and sorting.

List Deals

Retrieves a list of deals from Zoho CRM with support for filtering, sorting, and pagination.

List Zoho CRM Events

Lists events (meetings) from Zoho CRM with pagination and filtering support.

List Zoho CRM Leads

Retrieves lead records from Zoho CRM's Leads module with pagination support.

List Zoho CRM Modules

Lists all available Zoho CRM modules (standard + custom) to reliably select module API names/IDs for operations.

List Zoho CRM Notes

Retrieves a list of notes from Zoho CRM across all modules.

List Attachments for Zoho CRM Record

Tool to list attachment metadata (id, File_Name, Size, Created_Time, etc.

List Zoho CRM Tasks

Retrieves tasks from the Tasks module in Zoho CRM with support for filtering, pagination, and sorting.

Search Zoho CRM Accounts

Search for Account records within Zoho CRM using server-side queries.

Search Zoho CRM Calls

Search for Call records in Zoho CRM using server-side queries.

Search Zoho CRM Contacts

Search for contacts in Zoho CRM using server-side queries by criteria, email, phone, or keyword.

Search Deals in Zoho CRM

Search for Deal records in Zoho CRM using server-side queries.

Search Events

Search for Events in Zoho CRM using server-side queries.

Search Leads

Search for lead records in Zoho CRM using server-side queries.

Search Notes

Search for notes in Zoho CRM using server-side queries.

Search Zoho CRM Tasks

Search for tasks in Zoho CRM using flexible criteria including subject, status, priority, or due date.

Search Zoho CRM Records

Search for records within a Zoho CRM module using server-side queries.

Update Zoho CRM Account

Updates an existing Account record in Zoho CRM with the specified field values.

Update Zoho CRM Call

Updates existing call records in the Calls module in Zoho CRM.

Update Zoho CRM Deal

Updates an existing deal in Zoho CRM.

Update Zoho CRM Email Draft

Updates an existing email draft associated with a record in Zoho CRM.

Update Zoho CRM Event

Updates existing events in Zoho CRM.

Update Lead

Updates existing lead records in Zoho CRM.

Update Zoho CRM Note

Updates an existing note in Zoho CRM.

Update Related Records in Zoho CRM

Associates or updates relationships between records across different modules in Zoho CRM.

Update Zoho CRM Record

Updates existing records in a specified module in Zoho CRM.

Upload Attachment to Zoho CRM Record

Tool to upload a file as an Attachment to a specific Zoho CRM record.

Validate Zoho CRM Credentials

Validates Zoho CRM credentials by retrieving current user information.

FRAMEWORKS

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Muse

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OpenClaw

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Hermes

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Atomic Agent

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CLI

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Google ADK

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LangChain

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Vercel AI SDK

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Mastra AI

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LlamaIndex

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CrewAI

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Pydantic AI

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AutoGen

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MORE TOOLKITS

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Toolkit marketplace

HubSpot

Oauth2Api Key

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer service platform. It lets teams nurture leads, automate outreach, and track every customer interaction in one place.

Pipedrive

Oauth2Api Key

Pipedrive is a sales management platform offering pipeline visualization, lead tracking, and workflow automation. It helps sales teams keep deals moving forward efficiently and never miss a follow-up.

Salesforce

Oauth2S2s Oauth2

Salesforce is a leading CRM platform that helps businesses manage sales, service, and marketing. It centralizes customer data, enabling teams to drive growth and build strong relationships.

Apollo

Api Key

Apollo is a CRM and lead generation platform that helps businesses discover contacts and manage sales pipelines. Use it to streamline customer outreach and track your deals from one place.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

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 Zoho tools.

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Zoho 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.

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 Zoho data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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How to integrate Zoho MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Connect Zoho without auth hassles

Introduction

Also integrate Zoho with

TL;DR

What is OpenAI Agents SDK?

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

What is the Composio tool router, and how does it fit here?

What is Composio SDK?

How the Composio SDK works

Step-by-step Guide

Prerequisites

Getting API Keys for OpenAI and Composio

Install dependencies

Set up environment variables

Import dependencies

Set up the Composio instance

Create a Tool Router session

Configure the agent

Start chat loop and handle conversation

Complete Code

Conclusion

Supported Tools

How to build Zoho MCP Agent with another framework

Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Claude Agent SDK

Muse

Codex

Kimi Code

OpenClaw

Hermes

Atomic Agent

CLI

Google ADK

LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Pydantic AI

AutoGen

Explore Other Toolkits

HubSpot

Pipedrive

Salesforce

Apollo

Frequently asked questions

What are the differences in Tool Router MCP and Zoho MCP?+

Can I use Tool Router MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK?+

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

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?+

Start with Zoho.It takes 30 seconds.