How to integrate Grist MCP with Autogen

This guide walks you through connecting Grist to AutoGen using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Grist agent that can add new sales data to q2 table, create a document for project planning, delete outdated rows from inventory sheet through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your AutoGen agent real control over a Grist account through Composio's Grist MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

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Introduction

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

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

Also integrate Grist with

OpenAI Agents SDK Claude Agent SDK Claude Code Claude Cowork Codex OpenClaw Hermes CLI Google ADK LangChain Vercel AI SDK Mastra AI LlamaIndex CrewAI

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 Grist
Wire that MCP URL into Autogen using McpWorkbench and StreamableHttpServerParams
Configure an Autogen AssistantAgent that can call Grist tools
Run a live chat loop where you ask the agent to perform Grist 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 Grist MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Grist MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Grist account. It provides structured and secure access to your spreadsheets and documents, so your agent can perform actions like adding records, creating tables, managing documents, and handling attachments on your behalf.

Automated data entry and record management: Instruct your agent to add, update, or delete records in specific Grist tables, streamlining your workflows and reducing manual input.
Table and document creation: Let your agent create new tables or entire documents in your workspaces, helping you quickly set up and expand your data structures as your needs grow.
Attachment and file management: Ask your agent to remove unwanted attachments from Grist documents, keeping your files organized and storage efficient.
Custom webhook integration: Have your agent register or delete webhooks for documents, enabling real-time notifications and integrations with other tools or services you rely on.
User and access provisioning via SCIM: Direct your agent to create or delete SCIM users as needed, making it easy to manage who has access to your Grist environment.

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 step08 STEPS

Prerequisites

You will need:

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

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 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 Grist via MCP
autogen-agentchat provides the AssistantAgent class
autogen-ext-openai provides the OpenAI model client
autogen-ext-tools provides MCP workbench support

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 Grist connections to use

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 Grist session
    composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
        toolkits=["grist"]
    )
    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 Grist tools
session.mcp.url is the MCP endpoint that Autogen will connect to

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

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 Grist assistant agent with MCP tools
    agent = AssistantAgent(
        name="grist_assistant",
        description="An AI assistant that helps with Grist 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 Grist tools from the workbench

Run the interactive chat loop

python

print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end the conversation.\n")
print("Ask any Grist 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 Grist 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 Grist 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 Grist session
    composio = Composio(api_key=os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY"))
    session = composio.create(
        user_id=os.getenv("USER_ID"),
        toolkits=["grist"]
    )
    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 Grist assistant agent with MCP tools
        agent = AssistantAgent(
            name="grist_assistant",
            description="An AI assistant that helps with Grist 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 Grist 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 Grist 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 Grist, you can reuse the same structure for other MCP-enabled apps with minimal code changes.

TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Add Records

Add one or more records to a Grist table.

Create Document

Creates a new Grist document in a specified workspace.

Create SCIM User

Tool to create a new SCIM user.

Create Table

Tool to create tables in a document.

Create Document Webhook

Tool to create a new webhook for a specified document.

Remove Unused Attachments

Remove unused attachments from a Grist document to free up storage space.

Delete Column

Tool to delete a column from a Grist document table.

Delete Grist Table Records

Tool to delete records from a specified Grist table.

Delete SCIM User

Delete a user from the Grist organization by their numeric user ID.

Delete Webhook

Permanently removes a webhook from a Grist document.

Download All Attachments Archive

Download all attachments from a Grist document as a single archive file (.

Download Attachment

Download a file attachment from a Grist document.

Fetch Document Metadata

Tool to fetch metadata for a specified Grist document.

Fetch Table Metadata

Tool to retrieve metadata for a specified table in a Grist document.

Get Org Access

Retrieves the list of users who have access to a Grist organization along with their access roles (owners, editors, viewers).

Get Users

Tool to retrieve a list of users via SCIM v2.

List Attachments

Tool to list all attachments in a Grist document.

List Columns

Tool to list all columns in a specified Grist table.

List Organizations

Tool to list all organizations accessible to the authenticated user.

List Records

Tool to retrieve records from a specified table within a Grist document.

List Tables

Tool to list all tables within a specified document.

List Webhooks

List all webhooks configured for a Grist document.

List Workspaces

Tool to list all workspaces and documents accessible to the authenticated user on the current site.

Run SQL Query

Tool to execute a read-only SQL SELECT query on a Grist document.

Update Column Metadata

Updates metadata (label, type, description, formula, etc.

Update Document Metadata

Tool to update metadata for a specified Grist document.

Update Records

Update existing records in a Grist table by their row IDs.

Update Table Metadata

Update metadata properties for a table in a Grist document.

Update Webhook

Update an existing webhook configuration for a Grist document.

Upload Attachment

Upload one or more file attachments to a Grist document.

FRAMEWORKS

How to build Grist MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK

Use Grist MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Use Grist MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code

Use Grist MCP with Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Use Grist MCP with Claude Cowork

Codex

Use Grist MCP with Codex

OpenClaw

Use Grist MCP with OpenClaw

Hermes

Use Grist MCP with Hermes

CLI

Use Grist MCP with CLI

Google ADK

Use Grist MCP with Google ADK

LangChain

Use Grist MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Use Grist MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

Use Grist MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

Use Grist MCP with LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Use Grist MCP with CrewAI

MORE TOOLKITS

Explore Other Toolkits

Toolkit marketplace

Google Sheets

Oauth2

Google Sheets is a cloud-based spreadsheet tool for real-time collaboration and data analysis. It lets teams work together from anywhere, updating information instantly.

Notion

Oauth2Api Key

Notion is a collaborative workspace for notes, docs, wikis, and tasks. It streamlines team knowledge, project tracking, and workflow customization in one place.

Airtable

Oauth2Api Key

Airtable combines the flexibility of spreadsheets with the power of a database for easy project and data management. Teams use Airtable to organize, track, and collaborate with custom views and automations.

Asana

Oauth2

Asana is a collaborative work management platform for teams to organize and track projects. It streamlines teamwork, boosts productivity, and keeps everyone aligned on goals.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

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

Start with Grist.It takes 30 seconds.

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

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Customer stories

Teams ship real agents on Composio

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Karan skipped his own birthday party to fix our critical issue. It was 10pm and he diverted his Waymo to help us instead. This really sets the bar — it shows the commitment you need when users rely on your software.

Harsha Gaddipati

Co-founder, Slashy

A lot of students tell us that the moment their connected tools start talking to each other inside Opennote feels almost magical. The agent just knows them, and it's immensely helped keep new users on the platform.

Abhi Arya

Co-founder, Opennote

We chose Composio over Pipedream because it delivered depth where it mattered — niche tools and tricky edge cases other platforms simply ignored. That gave us confidence to scale without compromising.

Nirman Dave

CEO, Zams

As a solo builder, shipping fast is life or death. The only way I can outcompete incumbents is by outmanoeuvring them. Getting bogged down managing agent auth would have been a death sentence.

Ryan Yu

Founder, Extra Thursday

Before Composio, adding tool integrations was slow and resource-intensive. Each one could take weeks of engineering time, and maintaining them meant constantly keeping up with API changes.

Tomisin Jenrola

Founder & CEO, SwarmZero

With hands-on help from their founder, we integrated Gmail and Google Drive in just 30 minutes. This level of personal support and commitment is exactly what startups should strive for.

Jerome Leclanche

Co-Founder, Ingram Technologies

How to integrate Grist MCP with Autogen

Connect Grist without auth hassles

Introduction

Also integrate Grist with

TL;DR

What is AutoGen?

What is the Grist 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 and create Tool Router session

Configure MCP parameters for Autogen

Create the model client and agent

Run the interactive chat loop

Complete Code

Conclusion

Supported Tools

How to build Grist MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Codex

OpenClaw

Hermes

CLI

Google ADK

LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Explore Other Toolkits

Google Sheets

Notion

Airtable

Asana

Frequently asked questions

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

Can I use Tool Router MCP with Autogen?+

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

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?+

Start with Grist.It takes 30 seconds.

Teams ship real agents on Composio