How to integrate Cronly MCP with Pydantic AI

This guide walks you through connecting Cronly to Pydantic AI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Cronly agent that can list failed cron jobs today, check ssl certificates expiring soon, summarize active cronly server alerts through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your Pydantic AI agent real control over a Cronly account through Composio's Cronly MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Cronly logoCronly
Api Key

Cronly is an operations monitoring service for cron jobs, SSL certificates, servers, and crontab backups. It helps teams catch failures and expiry risks early with clear operational alerts.

10 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Cronly to Pydantic AI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Cronly agent that can list failed cron jobs today, check ssl certificates expiring soon, summarize active cronly server alerts through natural language commands.

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

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

Also integrate Cronly with

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:
  • How to set up your Composio API key and User ID
  • How to create a Composio Tool Router session for Cronly
  • How to attach an MCP Server to a Pydantic AI agent
  • How to stream responses and maintain chat history
  • How to build a simple REPL-style chat interface to test your Cronly workflows

What is Pydantic AI?

Pydantic AI is a Python framework for building AI agents with strong typing and validation. It leverages Pydantic's data validation capabilities to create robust, type-safe AI applications.

Key features include:

  • Type Safety: Built on Pydantic for automatic data validation
  • MCP Support: Native support for Model Context Protocol servers
  • Streaming: Built-in support for streaming responses
  • Async First: Designed for async/await patterns

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

The Cronly MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Cronly account. It provides structured and secure access to your cron monitors, certificate checks, projects, operational notifications, servers, backups, and account details, so your agent can create monitoring checks, review resources, report successful cron runs, organize monitors, and remove checks on your behalf.

  • Cron job monitoring: Have your agent create heartbeat monitors for cron jobs, report successful runs, and review existing monitors.
  • Certificate expiry checks: Let the agent create SSL and TLS certificate monitors for your hostnames, inspect current checks, or remove checks you no longer need.
  • Project organization: Direct your agent to create projects for grouping your monitoring work, review existing projects, and delete obsolete ones.
  • Operational resource review: Instruct your agent to list and inspect notifications, servers, crontab backups, users, monitors, projects, and certificates.
  • Account overview: Have your agent retrieve your organization details, timezone, and subscription summary without exposing billing or integration secrets.

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 step09 STEPS
1

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:
  • Python 3.9 or higher
  • A Composio account with an active API key
  • Basic familiarity with Python and async programming
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 pydantic-ai python-dotenv

Install the required libraries.

What's happening:

  • composio connects your agent to external SaaS tools like Cronly
  • pydantic-ai lets you create structured AI agents with tool support
  • python-dotenv loads your environment variables securely from a .env file
4

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

Create a .env file in your project root.

What's happening:

  • COMPOSIO_API_KEY authenticates your agent to Composio's API
  • USER_ID associates your session with your account for secure tool access
  • OPENAI_API_KEY to access OpenAI LLMs
5

Import dependencies

python
import asyncio
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from composio import Composio
from pydantic_ai import Agent
from pydantic_ai.mcp import MCPServerStreamableHTTP

load_dotenv()
What's happening:
  • We load environment variables and import required modules
  • Composio manages connections to Cronly
  • MCPServerStreamableHTTP connects to the Cronly MCP server endpoint
  • Agent from Pydantic AI lets you define and run the AI assistant
6

Create a Tool Router Session

python
async def main():
    api_key = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")
    user_id = os.getenv("USER_ID")
    if not api_key or not user_id:
        raise RuntimeError("Set COMPOSIO_API_KEY and USER_ID in your environment")

    # Create a Composio Tool Router session for Cronly
    composio = Composio(api_key=api_key)
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=user_id,
        toolkits=["cronly"],
    )
    url = session.mcp.url
    if not url:
        raise ValueError("Composio session did not return an MCP URL")
What's happening:
  • We're creating a Tool Router session that gives your agent access to Cronly tools
  • The create method takes the user ID and specifies which toolkits should be available
  • The returned session.mcp.url is the MCP server URL that your agent will use
7

Initialize the Pydantic AI Agent

python
# Attach the MCP server to a Pydantic AI Agent
cronly_mcp = MCPServerStreamableHTTP(url, headers={"x-api-key": COMPOSIO_API_KEY})
agent = Agent(
    "openai:gpt-5",
    toolsets=[cronly_mcp],
    instructions=(
        "You are a Cronly assistant. Use Cronly tools to help users "
        "with their requests. Ask clarifying questions when needed."
    ),
)
What's happening:
  • The MCP client connects to the Cronly endpoint
  • The agent uses GPT-5 to interpret user commands and perform Cronly operations
  • The instructions field defines the agent's role and behavior
8

Build the chat interface

python
# Simple REPL with message history
history = []
print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n")
print("Try asking the agent to help you with Cronly.\n")

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", flush=True)

    async with agent.run_stream(user_input, message_history=history) as stream_result:
        collected_text = ""
        async for chunk in stream_result.stream_output():
            text_piece = None
            if isinstance(chunk, str):
                text_piece = chunk
            elif hasattr(chunk, "delta") and isinstance(chunk.delta, str):
                text_piece = chunk.delta
            elif hasattr(chunk, "text"):
                text_piece = chunk.text
            if text_piece:
                collected_text += text_piece
        result = stream_result

    print(f"Agent: {collected_text}\n")
    history = result.all_messages()
What's happening:
  • The agent reads input from the terminal and streams its response
  • Cronly API calls happen automatically under the hood
  • The model keeps conversation history to maintain context across turns
9

Run the application

python
if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())
What's happening:
  • The asyncio loop launches the agent and keeps it running until you exit

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Cronly and Pydantic AI:

python
import asyncio
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from composio import Composio
from pydantic_ai import Agent
from pydantic_ai.mcp import MCPServerStreamableHTTP

load_dotenv()

async def main():
    api_key = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")
    user_id = os.getenv("USER_ID")
    if not api_key or not user_id:
        raise RuntimeError("Set COMPOSIO_API_KEY and USER_ID in your environment")

    # Create a Composio Tool Router session for Cronly
    composio = Composio(api_key=api_key)
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=user_id,
        toolkits=["cronly"],
    )
    url = session.mcp.url
    if not url:
        raise ValueError("Composio session did not return an MCP URL")

    # Attach the MCP server to a Pydantic AI Agent
    cronly_mcp = MCPServerStreamableHTTP(url, headers={"x-api-key": COMPOSIO_API_KEY})
    agent = Agent(
        "openai:gpt-5",
        toolsets=[cronly_mcp],
        instructions=(
            "You are a Cronly assistant. Use Cronly tools to help users "
            "with their requests. Ask clarifying questions when needed."
        ),
    )

    # Simple REPL with message history
    history = []
    print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n")
    print("Try asking the agent to help you with Cronly.\n")

    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", flush=True)

        async with agent.run_stream(user_input, message_history=history) as stream_result:
            collected_text = ""
            async for chunk in stream_result.stream_output():
                text_piece = None
                if isinstance(chunk, str):
                    text_piece = chunk
                elif hasattr(chunk, "delta") and isinstance(chunk.delta, str):
                    text_piece = chunk.delta
                elif hasattr(chunk, "text"):
                    text_piece = chunk.text
                if text_piece:
                    collected_text += text_piece
            result = stream_result

        print(f"Agent: {collected_text}\n")
        history = result.all_messages()

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

Conclusion

You've built a Pydantic AI agent that can interact with Cronly through Composio's Tool Router. With this setup, your agent can perform real Cronly actions through natural language. You can extend this further by:
  • Adding other toolkits like Gmail, HubSpot, or Salesforce
  • Building a web-based chat interface around this agent
  • Using multiple MCP endpoints to enable cross-app workflows (for example, Gmail + Cronly for workflow automation)
This architecture makes your AI agent "agent-native", able to securely use APIs in a unified, composable way without custom integrations.
TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Create Certificate Monitor

Create an SSL/TLS certificate-expiry monitor for a hostname and port.

Create Monitor

Create a cron-job heartbeat monitor and return its ID and sensitive pulse token.

Create Project

Create a project for organizing Cronly monitors and certificate checks.

Delete Certificate Monitor

Permanently delete an SSL/TLS certificate monitor by numeric ID.

Delete Monitor

Permanently delete a cron-job monitor by numeric ID.

Delete Project

Permanently delete a Cronly project by numeric ID.

Get Company

Return safe organization, timezone, and subscription-summary fields for the connected Cronly account without exposing billing or integration secrets.

Get Resource

Get one monitor, project, certificate, user, server, or backup by its resource identity.

List Resources

List notifications, monitors, projects, certificates, users, servers, or backups.

Pulse Monitor

Record a successful heartbeat for a monitor using its sensitive pulse token.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. Pydantic AI 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 Cronly tools.

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

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