How to integrate Cradl AI MCP with Autogen

This guide walks you through connecting Cradl AI to AutoGen using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Cradl AI agent that can extract invoice totals from uploaded pdfs, list failed cradl ai extraction jobs, review purchase order extraction results through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your AutoGen agent real control over a Cradl AI account through Composio's Cradl AI MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Cradl AI logoCradl AI
S2s Oauth2

Cradl AI is an API-first platform for AI-powered document extraction workflows. Use it to turn invoices, forms, and PDFs into structured data at scale.

11 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Cradl AI to AutoGen using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Cradl AI agent that can extract invoice totals from uploaded pdfs, list failed cradl ai extraction jobs, review purchase order extraction results through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your AutoGen agent real control over a Cradl AI account through Composio's Cradl AI MCP server.

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

Also integrate Cradl AI with

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:
  • Get and set up your OpenAI and Composio API keys
  • Install the required dependencies for Autogen and Composio
  • Initialize Composio and create a Tool Router session for Cradl AI
  • Wire that MCP URL into Autogen using McpWorkbench and StreamableHttpServerParams
  • Configure an Autogen AssistantAgent that can call Cradl AI tools
  • Run a live chat loop where you ask the agent to perform Cradl AI operations

What is AutoGen?

Autogen is a framework for building multi-agent conversational AI systems from Microsoft. It enables you to create agents that can collaborate, use tools, and maintain complex workflows.

Key features include:

  • Multi-Agent Systems: Build collaborative agent workflows
  • MCP Workbench: Native support for Model Context Protocol tools
  • Streaming HTTP: Connect to external services through streamable HTTP
  • AssistantAgent: Pre-built agent class for tool-using assistants

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

The Cradl AI MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Cradl AI account. It provides structured and secure access to your document extraction workflows, so your agent can upload and process documents, start and monitor processing runs, review extracted predictions, and download results on your behalf.

  • Document processing: Have your agent submit a PDF, image, or email to a selected document processing agent for asynchronous extraction.
  • Agent and document discovery: Let the agent list available document processing agents and browse documents in your connected workspace.
  • Processing run management: Direct your agent to start processing runs, list past runs, filter them by status or time, and check their current state and outputs.
  • Prediction review: Instruct your agent to list extracted predictions and inspect their status, extracted fields, errors, and output references.
  • File retrieval: Have your agent download document content, OCR results, annotations, predictions, or processing variables returned by Cradl AI.

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:

  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

Step by step08 STEPS
1

Prerequisites

You will need:

  • A Composio API key
  • An OpenAI API key (used by Autogen's OpenAIChatCompletionClient)
  • A Cradl AI account you can connect to Composio
  • Some basic familiarity with Autogen and Python async
2

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.
3

Install dependencies

bash
pip install composio python-dotenv
pip install autogen-agentchat autogen-ext-openai autogen-ext-tools

Install Composio, Autogen extensions, and dotenv.

What's happening:

  • composio connects your agent to Cradl AI via MCP
  • autogen-agentchat provides the AssistantAgent class
  • autogen-ext-openai provides the OpenAI model client
  • autogen-ext-tools provides MCP workbench support

4

Set up environment variables

bash
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your-composio-api-key
OPENAI_API_KEY=your-openai-api-key
USER_ID=your-user-identifier@example.com

Create a .env file in your project folder.

What's happening:

  • COMPOSIO_API_KEY is required to talk to Composio
  • OPENAI_API_KEY is used by Autogen's OpenAI client
  • USER_ID is how Composio identifies which user's Cradl AI connections to use
5

Import dependencies and create Tool Router session

python
import asyncio
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from composio import Composio

from autogen_agentchat.agents import AssistantAgent
from autogen_ext.models.openai import OpenAIChatCompletionClient
from autogen_ext.tools.mcp import McpWorkbench, StreamableHttpServerParams

load_dotenv()

async def main():
    # Initialize Composio and create a Cradl AI session
    composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
        toolkits=["cradl_ai"]
    )
    url = session.mcp.url
What's happening:
  • load_dotenv() reads your .env file
  • Composio(api_key=...) initializes the SDK
  • create(...) creates a Tool Router session that exposes Cradl AI tools
  • session.mcp.url is the MCP endpoint that Autogen will connect to
6

Configure MCP parameters for Autogen

python
# Configure MCP server parameters for Streamable HTTP
server_params = StreamableHttpServerParams(
    url=url,
    timeout=30.0,
    sse_read_timeout=300.0,
    terminate_on_close=True,
    headers={"x-api-key": os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")}
)

Autogen expects parameters describing how to talk to the MCP server. That is what StreamableHttpServerParams is for.

What's happening:

  • url points to the Tool Router MCP endpoint from Composio
  • timeout is the HTTP timeout for requests
  • sse_read_timeout controls how long to wait when streaming responses
  • terminate_on_close=True cleans up the MCP server process when the workbench is closed
7

Create the model client and agent

python
# Create model client
model_client = OpenAIChatCompletionClient(
    model="gpt-5",
    api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")
)

# Use McpWorkbench as context manager
async with McpWorkbench(server_params) as workbench:
    # Create Cradl AI assistant agent with MCP tools
    agent = AssistantAgent(
        name="cradl_ai_assistant",
        description="An AI assistant that helps with Cradl AI operations.",
        model_client=model_client,
        workbench=workbench,
        model_client_stream=True,
        max_tool_iterations=10
    )

What's happening:

  • OpenAIChatCompletionClient wraps the OpenAI model for Autogen
  • McpWorkbench connects the agent to the MCP tools
  • AssistantAgent is configured with the Cradl AI tools from the workbench
8

Run the interactive chat loop

python
print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end the conversation.\n")
print("Ask any Cradl AI related question or task to the agent.\n")

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

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

    if not user_input:
        continue

    print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

    # Run the agent with streaming
    try:
        response_text = ""
        async for message in agent.run_stream(task=user_input):
            if hasattr(message, "content") and message.content:
                response_text = message.content

        # Print the final response
        if response_text:
            print(f"Agent: {response_text}\n")
        else:
            print("Agent: I encountered an issue processing your request.\n")

    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Agent: Sorry, I encountered an error: {str(e)}\n")
What's happening:
  • The script prompts you in a loop with You:
  • Autogen passes your input to the model, which decides which Cradl AI tools to call via MCP
  • agent.run_stream(...) yields streaming messages as the agent thinks and calls tools
  • Typing exit, quit, or bye ends the loop

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Cradl AI and AutoGen:

python
import asyncio
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from composio import Composio

from autogen_agentchat.agents import AssistantAgent
from autogen_ext.models.openai import OpenAIChatCompletionClient
from autogen_ext.tools.mcp import McpWorkbench, StreamableHttpServerParams

load_dotenv()

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

    # Configure MCP server parameters for Streamable HTTP
    server_params = StreamableHttpServerParams(
        url=url,
        timeout=30.0,
        sse_read_timeout=300.0,
        terminate_on_close=True,
        headers={"x-api-key": os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")}
    )

    # Create model client
    model_client = OpenAIChatCompletionClient(
        model="gpt-5",
        api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")
    )

    # Use McpWorkbench as context manager
    async with McpWorkbench(server_params) as workbench:
        # Create Cradl AI assistant agent with MCP tools
        agent = AssistantAgent(
            name="cradl_ai_assistant",
            description="An AI assistant that helps with Cradl AI operations.",
            model_client=model_client,
            workbench=workbench,
            model_client_stream=True,
            max_tool_iterations=10
        )

        print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end the conversation.\n")
        print("Ask any Cradl AI related question or task to the agent.\n")

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

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

            if not user_input:
                continue

            print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

            # Run the agent with streaming
            try:
                response_text = ""
                async for message in agent.run_stream(task=user_input):
                    if hasattr(message, 'content') and message.content:
                        response_text = message.content

                # Print the final response
                if response_text:
                    print(f"Agent: {response_text}\n")
                else:
                    print("Agent: I encountered an issue processing your request.\n")

            except Exception as e:
                print(f"Agent: Sorry, I encountered an error: {str(e)}\n")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Conclusion

You now have an Autogen assistant wired into Cradl AI through Composio's Tool Router and MCP. From here you can:
  • Add more toolkits to the toolkits list, for example notion or hubspot
  • Refine the agent description to point it at specific workflows
  • Wrap this script behind a UI, Slack bot, or internal tool
Once the pattern is clear for Cradl AI, you can reuse the same structure for other MCP-enabled apps with minimal code changes.
TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Download File

Download document, OCR, annotation, prediction, or run-variable content from a Cradl AI file URL returned by another Cradl AI tool.

Get Agent Run

Get the current state and outputs of one Cradl AI agent run.

Get Document

Get metadata, processing links, and annotations for one Cradl AI document by ID.

Get Prediction

Get one extracted prediction, including its status, fields, errors, and downloadable output references.

List Agent Runs

List processing runs for an agent, optionally filtered by status or creation/update time.

List Agents

List document-processing agents available to the connected Cradl AI workspace.

List Documents

List documents in the connected Cradl AI workspace and discover document IDs and content/output file URLs.

List Predictions

List extracted predictions, optionally filtered by model, and discover prediction IDs and output file URLs.

Process Document

Create a persistent Cradl agent run and document, then upload one document for asynchronous extraction in a single call.

Start Agent Run

Create a processing run for an existing Cradl AI agent.

Upload Document to Run

Create a document attached to a Cradl AI agent run and upload its PDF, image, or email bytes.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. Autogen 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 Cradl AI tools.

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

Start with Cradl AI.It takes 30 seconds.

Managed auth, hosted MCP servers, and every Cradl AI tool your agent needs.Free to start.

Start building